


The Revolutions of Mars

by Ferocious_Femme_Fatale



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adorable Grogu | Baby Yoda, Dark, Developing Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Non-Explicit Sex, Original Character(s), POV Din Djarin, Past Abuse, Past Violence, Plot, Rebellion, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Soft Din Djarin, Strong Female Characters, Team as Family, The Mandalorian (TV) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 80,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29491155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferocious_Femme_Fatale/pseuds/Ferocious_Femme_Fatale
Summary: This is a story about the birth of a Revolution.This is a story about love; how it can destroy, how it can transform, how it can heal. In friendship, in families that are discovered, and, sometimes, in romance.But most of all, this is a story about a woman who would be named Mars. And it begins with a Mandalorian climbing onto the balcony of a Brothel in a city of outlaws.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> I’m going to be real with y’all, I’m not a writer. But one day in the middle of the pandemic, a volcanic woman stepped into my head, commented on the mess, and demanded to be written. She’s persistent like that.
> 
> And I figured, what better place to have her story unfold than in a Galaxy far, far away?
> 
> If you decide to read this, thank you!! I had so much fun writing it. Putting this out into the world is scary. But I really hope you enjoy it, or if anything, I hope it lets you step away from reality for a little while.
> 
> Now to some housekeeping. We are going to be navigating through dark waters with flawed and oftentimes problematic characters. In some instances—that I will mark in chapter notes—this story either allude to or go into human trafficking, abuse, drug use, toxic power dynamics, violence, mental illness, sex, and the messy paths of grief and healing. It does not go into extreme, painful detail, but I don’t want to trigger anyone. If discussing these topics hurts you in any way, please be kind to yourself.
> 
> And with that, here we go—picking up right after Redemption.

_25 Years Before the Escape:_

The ramshackle city was magic. A shape shifter. 

One hour, the horizon would be nothing more than a color scheme of dull grays and tans, filled with stoic, retired smugglers and people who trouble just seemed to find. The next hour though, when the sun set, the city ignited. Ugly realities are hidden by the dark sky, and made breathtaking by the glow of the reflected purples, reds, yellows, and blues from the sides of the newly crystallized buildings. Sure, those who stumbled through the street were almost always intoxicated; be it spice, alcohol, sex. But the girl didn’t mind that. Even now, as a child, she felt an overpowering sense of awe by just her mere insignificance. She was illuminated but still invisible, surrounded by more living beings of all species than she’d ever seen, but still completely alone.

Until she wasn’t anymore.

On this night, a young boy padded across the cool concrete floor of the Child’s Tower. He darted silently through several rows of bunk beds that held onto small sleeping bodies. His outstretched hand grabbed the girl by the wrist, pulled her out of bed and dragged her down the long hallway. Dark hair spilled over a freckled face and the friendliest brown eyes she’d ever seen. The walls echoed with the kind of laughter that was specifically saved for sneaking children.

“We’re in this together, right?” The boy—who she had come to know as Viv—asked, pushing the loose strands of hair behind his ear.

He came to a stop in front of the only window in the brothel that had a faulty lock. The hinges were rusted over from neglect, and easy to shove out of place with just the right amount of force. His palms pressed against the pane of glass and it swung outward. Sounds of the city spilled into the hallway, and she worried for a single breathless moment that the Overlord would come bursting out of their sleeping quarters and catch them. Her partner, undeterred by the notion, climbed onto the ledge. It was narrow, and the steep drop shifted gravity, making the girl’s stomach rise into her throat.

“Together,” she answered, trying to keep her voice steady. She stuck her head out into the night air and her heart jumped into her mouth from staring down at the street below.

“Don’t look down, Mars!” Viv warned.

He sidestepped across the ridge, ambient light colored him shades of blue and purple, until he reached a ladder to the roof of the brothel. Mars, like she would end up doing for most of her days going forward, kept her eyes fixed on him. The roof was flat, vast, and overlooked a magic city. Perfect for two children who still desperately clung to a childhood that they were torn away from.

Viv plopped himself down, and she mimicked him. Their feet dangled off of the side of thebuilding, and her toes tingled from the euphoria of being so far away from the ground where they belonged. The buildings reflected light into an atmosphere that drank it up and spit it back out, painting the skyline into a city of gemstones.

“My name’s Mara, by the way. Not Mars. You may have forgotten from earlier.” She sheepishly admitted once her voice made its return.

Viv laughed, brilliantly, “How could I forget your name? You tried to punch an Overlord! The smugglers don’t usually bring in anyone fun.”

The memory of the Brothel’s Overlord shoving her too hard, and her overzealous retaliation made her laugh, she hadn’t realized anyone would actually remember her for that. Viv shrugged. "I don’t know, Mars fits.”

And until the day the light drained out of his friendly brown eyes, she was Mars.

—

_2 Days Before the Escape:_

The sun sleepily ducked down into the horizon, and the city was just beginning to make its grand transformation into treasure when she came face to face with the reality that Mars wasn’t here anymore. A gaping wound had formed and it ate away at the life that had allowed that part of her to exist, leaving her empty. Mars was gone.

In the recent months, she’d spend her early evenings watching the lights dance and prance across the city’s horizon until she heard that familiar knock on her door that would shake her out of the trance she’d put herself in as an attempt to forget. And it worked. She’d never tire of the way the reflections of the sleek metal skyscrapers resulted in facets of color that her imagination could easily latch onto. Without fail, every night since Viv dragged her onto that roof, the cold, silver city transformed into a paradise of monstrous jewels made of the most beautiful colors eyes could perceive, and the rest of the galaxy melted away. Mara and her gemstone city remained.

Leaning against the railing, Mara idly traced her fingers over the technology expertly implanted into her temple. It was raw, and the thin skin around it was a little swollen from her age-old habit of touching wounds just to see if they still hurt. It’d been years since the Opt-Blockers had disappeared from Madam Scoria Karaay’s Brothel, and Mara had forgotten just how painful implantation was. Personally, she thought the excruciating tactics of the medical procedure were purposeful; a sick form of punishment to send a message to the Workers for obeying a Madam who seemed so eager to undercut the Syndicate’s power. _We control your sight. Act out again, and you’ll never get it back._

It was a barbaric piece of tech, used only as a mode of control and as an appeal to draw in a more discrete clientele-base. The Syndicates weren’t in the business of humanitarian approaches to sex work. There were two goals: make credits, but more importantly, keep credits. Opt-Blockers kept Workers from walking out of the building and never returning. If a Worker even left their room without authorization, they’d be blinded. For the Syndicates, they were a mere perk before Scoria came along, but they were even more necessary now that she was gone. After all, the Brothel was still full of military trained Workers who had held Freedom in their hands, turned it over in their palms, and felt its radiating warmth. And the Syndicates forced them to watch as it was ripped out of their grasp, dragged into the hull of a dark ship, and flown off into the atmosphere to never be seen again.

Mara pressed a little harder on the metal, letting it sting, and thinking of Viv’s loophole. The re-introduction of the technology had made their daily ventures to the roof of the Brothel more inconvenient, but Viv was relentlessly stubborn. The day she had to endure her second painfully slow procedure of screwing the Opt-Blocker into her skull, Mara was spread out on her sofa facing the large windows of her bedroom. She had been attempting to shut her eyes and ignore the throbbing pain that drummed through her entire face, but something large dropped onto her balcony.

Viv was barreling through the doors and before Mara could even react to the commotion, he settled next to her. She watched him pull out a make-shift pin and he unscrewed her device, fiddling with the wires inside of the technology. “If you unscrew the thickest wire, it won’t be able to communicate with the control panels,” he murmured, “Just put it back before we have our check-ins with the Overlords, we can’t have them catching on to the fact that Workers actually have half a brain.”

Something fell with a heavy knock behind Mara, jostling her out of her city light hypnosis. She pushed off of the railing of the balcony to face the source. A tiny part of her expected to be face to face with dark wavy hair and brown eyes that could convince you the galaxy wasn’t just war and rebellion.

Her heart sank foolishly from the realization that she was alone. The knock repeated, slow and foreboding, three more times. Mara made her way toward the bedroom door. It was time to get back to work.

Slowly, she stepped into her room and dragged her fingers across the deeply rich purple, velvet curtains, intentionally leaving them open; letting the city remind her that the room—all tall windows and velvet and purples—masquerading as a luxurious provider to any desire wouldn’t actually cave in on her. Endless lives, endless stories existed and persisted just beyond the railing of the balcony. Mara could get through this night; one step toward the door at a time.

With a deep breath and planting a grin across her face, the knob twisted in her palm. “You can’t even manage a genuine smile?” A familiar, melodic voice scolded lightly.

Mara’s face fell. “Destrie. To what do I owe the honor of being in the presence of an Overlord?” She fell back on her heels, rolling her eyes, as he nudged past her, “I was expecting a client. You know, so I can fill those pockets of yours.”

Sinking into the soft fabrics that draped across the bed, Destrie sat himself on the edge of the mattress. He was a lanky figure, like his aging limbs had grown a little too long when he was a boy, and he never really got used to them. Greying hair peppered down his sideburns and into a well shaped beard that hid his skeletal bone structure. His burgundy uniform blended into the walls. Deep inset green eyes looked upon Mara with disappointment, and he sucked on his teeth, “We’ve received a complaint.”

The bar cart across the room called to her, and Mara decided to let herself saunter over to the perfectly arranged collection of liquors and wines. She traced over a bottle of imported Andoan wine and poured herself a glass. After a too-large sip, she pointed to her chest, raising her eyebrows as a silent, _About who? Me?_

“They were able to reattach Edsgar’s fingers, in case you were wondering,” Destrie leaned back on his palm, critically studying Mara as she turned all of her attention to the glass full of sickly sweet liquid in her hand.

Mara still felt the sting from a palm colliding with the skin of her cheek, “I wasn’t.”

The Overlord hung his head and a long, exasperated sigh escaped from his lungs, “Clients come here to experience the luxury Keyorin’s most beautiful women, not to fall victim to a prostitute’s temper tantrum.”

This made Mara scoff, “I’d have less temper tantrums if I had some kind of control over who my clients were. Edsgar was a fugitive, Destrie. He slapped me because I ‘talked back.’ It’s not my job to be a luxury for the galaxy’s worst.”

Destrie stood suddenly, crossing the room in three pounding paces to tower above her, “That is your job. You do what your clients say.”

“It wasn’t until you came back around,” she mumbled, turning her back to take another sip of wine, she hadn’t realized how quickly she was gulping it down, her hands were starting to feel heavy.

“I’m really sticking my neck out here. The Overlords want to retire you. I explained your circumstances. They’re empathetic, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep justifying your actions every time you lash out, Mars,” Destrie pleaded, his voice lowering as he ran his hand down her arm.

She was sure her skin was turning into stone, “Don’t call me that.”

“I know you miss him,” The Overlord whispered, “But you can’t start doing this. At least think of what Viv would have wanted for you.”

The room slowly began to tumble when the name flew out of the Overlord’s lips and fluttered little circles around her head. Mara sucked in a breath of air as Destrie continued, “You know what they do to retired prostitutes. They’re killed, sold to the Hutts, or, Gods forbid, sent off to a Holding House. I don’t want to see that happen to you. I’m on your side. I wish you could see that.”

Hope flickered in her chest, “Then give us some control! We’ll stay just like we did with Scoria…You, Destrie, you can make this better for everyone. There’s nothing stopping you from changing it back to—”

Boney, long fingers wrapped around her glass and he gently pried it from her grasp, chuckling warmly as he always did when he thought he was stating something profound that he thought Mara could learn from, “To how it was before? Scoria was a radical woman, darling. You didn’t see how poorly this place was run because you were blinded by idealism. Things will get better, but in the meantime, you must give the Overlords a reason to want to change. Do you think chopping off fingers is the best way to get them to see your side?”

“Probably not,” Mara whispered, letting Destrie’s hands glide down her hips and pull her close.

Giving in to his touch, Mara’s arms wrapped around the back of his neck. Her voice came out much lighter, much airier than she wanted it to, “Just let us have some control over our schedules. There’s no harm in that.”

The Overlord dipped down to place a light kiss against her lips, “No more talking about work,” he murmured.

Mara slipped into a different world. The city, the Overlord, the whole galaxy became foggy as she was lightly pushed toward her bed. She tucked herself away, safe in her head. Destrie slowly pulled off her clothes, and then his own, hanging his burgundy jacket on the headboard. His skin pressed against hers, and from her body, he extracted as much pleasure as he could gather. Mara let him. She moved like an expertly crafted automation function in a droid, and watched it happen through a dusty window in a dark room.

Just as daylight began to bleed through the windows, Destrie rolled out of Mara’s bed with a groan. His joints snapped as he stretched and shrugged on his shirt. The morning sun coaxed her out of the dark room she’d been curled up in. Mara sat up, watching the man dress himself into an Overlord. “You’ll think about what I asked for last night, right?” She asked sleepily.

“You have a one track mind,” Destrie laughed, sliding shoes on his feet, “Be careful with it, or I’ll start to think you’re using me for personal gain.”

If she had anything to lose, if this had been three weeks earlier, Mara would have paled in the face of the accusation. But she harbored an apathy that only the most hopeless of fools had the ability to carry—the kind of indifference that understood consequences, but actively ignored them. She chuckled, leaning back against her pillows, “Are you just now realizing I’m using you?”

The Overlord laughed with her, unable to see past his own ego to realize she wasn’t acting facetious. “I’ll bring your request for control over your schedules to the others,” He said, sitting down next to her and running his fingers down her bare chest.

She grabbed his wrist and gently pushed him away, smiling as she did it so he wouldn’t take it as a slight against him, “We’ll talk about removing the Children’s Tower again next week.”

Destrie rolled his eyes and made his way toward the door, “No one works until they come of age, don’t accuse this brothel of immorality, darling. I’ll see you in a few days.”

The door slammed behind him, and Mara grimaced. “Darling,” She mockingly exaggerated his sing-song voice before rolling over into the pillows.

The bed embraced her and didn’t let go. For an hour, she lay, half expecting Viv to burst through her balcony door and yank her to her feet. Tears began to well up in her eyes, and the weight of them got all bunched up in her throat. She forced them back down, but they got stuck in her lungs. Mara pushed out of the velvet, threw on a robe and tied it tight around her torso. Get through the day.

Workers stumbled out of their rooms, padding down the long hallway, lined with empty rooms that were filled to the brim with debauchery only a few hours prior. Now, they wiped the sleep out of eyes that stared head without locking onto any existing focal point. They rubbed the raw spots where their horns were shaved down. They eased the pain from the empty spaces where their pointy teeth were pulled out. They kept their hands balled into fists to hide where their brass medaled nails once existed. Mara blended in seamlessly.

The brothel was divided up into two sections—where clients could go and where Workers were able to escape them. The first floor was a cantina, lined by guards, filled with Workers who were assigned to entertain walk-in’s who had stumbled off of the street, presumably from nights of gamblings and pockets of credits they were ready to spend on impulse. Other Workers were kept hidden in their rooms the moment the sun set and the city changed, waiting for the Overlords to send in the more notable clients with heavier pockets and who warranted more discretion.

A Twi’lek named Elisia had begun to fall into step with Mara. Her orange lekku swayed with each step she took, strips of brown leather wrapped around her forehead and criss-crossed down their length. A picture of grace, the Twi’lek was known under Scoria for having the swiftest kicks of everyone. She was so quick and smooth in her movements she was practically invisible when she twirled around her opponents, and she one of Mara’s favorite partners to practice with. Now, though, Elisia walked with a bit of a limp, like she was carrying something heavy on her back. Mara nodded in her direction, and Elisia returned the gesture. “An overlord get ahold of you too?” Mara asked, her eyes fixed on the Twi’lek’s bruised ankle.

“Tried to, anyway,” Elisia quirked a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

The Workers making their way to the common area alongside her for morning rations weren’t just harboring invisible wounds. Bruises painted their skin, some veered off into the medical wing of the brothel so that droid nurses could inject them with bacta to quickly heel sprained wrists and bleeding lips. A sickening bile boiled in Mara’s chest. “They can’t retire all of us, so they’ll just beat us into submission,” she scoffed.

The women dragged their feet into the common area, picking fruit and pieces of bread off of the large table where a spread of rations lay for the taking. “One of them is going to push us too far,” Elisia scowled, taking a large bite of a piece of bread lathered in some kind of white cheese, “And then they’ll regret coming back here.”

“There’s no point,” Mara said plopping herself down on a couch, staring at the white stripes in the dried Jogan fruit in her hands, “If we fight back, we either get killed or they’ll retire us.”

The Twi’lek’s blue eyes studied Mara so intently that she sank down a bit, “You’re joking,” Elisia knelt down in front of her, “You don’t believe that.”

“I do. We might be able to negotiate with the Overlords if we’re…a little easier to work with.”

Elisia stood, her brow furrowed in anger, “Easier to work with? They’re forcing us into slavery and you think we should be polite about it?”

She was right, of course. Mara understood the absurdity of asking Workers to put on a smile as they were beaten down and forced back into submission. Honor, though, was fickle. It molded into different forms, and right now, Honor had to work hand in hand with Survival, despite all of Scoria’s lessons on how the two were impossible to hold simultaneously. How Mara hoped that wasn’t true. 

“We have to survive,” Mara whispered, avoiding Elisia’s icy gaze, “That means playing along with their game.”

This answer was obviously not what the Twi’lek wanted to hear, not that Mara could blame her, and she rolled her eyes, lekku whipping as she briskly turned around, “This is ridiculous. I gotta go get my ankle looked at. I’ll be sure to properly thank the Overlord who did it too, since dignity is apparently the price for survival.”

“You know that’s not what I meant!” Mara called after her, trying to keep her heart in tact.

The rest of the day passed by and Mara watched it through glass. Eat. Bathe. Ignore the Empty. Get back to work.


	2. A Sandstorm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence, mentions of abuse

_15 Years Before the Escape:_

Scoria Karaay swept into the Brothel the same way a sandstorm whips into a village on Tatooine—with power, and with every single person forced to helplessly watch it happen. The Empire was still in its prime, spreading its rule across the galaxy and it would be long before the New Republic sprouted up to claim its victory. Scoria had mysteriously decided to change her title as Imperial Fleet Admiral to Madam of Keyorin’s Brothel. Even the Overlords and the Syndicates were so intimidated by her connections to the Empire that they hardly questioned her sudden reign of power.

In retrospect it was unsurprising, in every sense of the word, Scoria was gigantic. Her presence would silence a room, and everyone would make space for her. On the surface, the affects of the Empire existed in the way she commanded rather than spoke, in her scars that curved and slithered over her muscular, sun-kissed biceps and across her angular face, and in her short, chopped white haircut that was better equipped to stay out of the way when handling a blaster. It wouldn’t take long though for Mars to realize Scoria’s physicality wasn’t where the proof of battle lived, it was more evident in her desperate desire to wipe the last several years clean out of her memory.

Viv and Mars were sitting in the common area with the rest of the prostitutes when Scoria, and the small band of guards who loyally followed her, escorted the Overlords out of the building. Everyone watched in awe. Once the Overlords were gone, Scoria returned and addressed the room, “My name is Scoria Karaay, and I’m making a few changes. Slavery and pleasure can’t exist at the same time, and we are in the business of pleasure, aren’t we?”

Mars was sure she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. Could Viv hear how loud her heart was beating?

Scoria continued, “So with that, you are not my prostitutes. You are my Workers. You are all beautiful, but more importantly, you are all alive. You cannot be both of those things if you are bound by chains. So, if you would like to leave; you are free to go.”

There was a moment of pause while the Sandstorm Woman allowed the room to absorb the choice she had just provided—the first choice many of these beings had ever been offered. “I will give you all time to process and make your decisions. The Brothel is closed until further notice. Training starts tomorrow. Get some rest; all of you.”

“Training?” Mars blurted out, feeling a jolt of lightning when Scoria’s intense gaze fell upon her.

She smiled, “With freedom comes danger. By the time we’re through, you will be capable of more than you can imagine.”

Hope infected the Brothel that day. Scoria was drenched in it. The moment she waltzed in and opened her mouth to speak, her Hope went airborne. The Workers didn’t stand a chance. The particles swept through the room and regardless of everything they had known to be true, Hope laid siege to their doubts.

—

_The Day of the Escape:_

The tracker beacon was firing off red light and beeping rapidly. The Bounty Hunter shoved it into his belt, nodding toward two men who had watched his ship land next to their station. The planet was an endless sprawl of buildings and skyscrapers. The heart of the city exploded from the surface, emitting a halo of light. He’d landed on the outskirts, hoping it’d be a little quieter for the child he left sleeping in the ship while he hunted down his quarry.

Spice smugglers were predictable. After some minor negotiation with the bounty’s partner, details of a reputable brothel, if there was such a thing, and a single prostitute the smuggler frequented every couple of months spilled out. The Bounty Hunter would make sure that their paths would cross.

“You got a speeder bike I could borrow? I can pay,” He called out toward the men sitting near the entrance of the station, they were sipping on some kind of bottle, passing it back and forth.

“Sh-yeah,” a taller one, clothed in leather, dust, and a drunken state of confidence, slurred out, “We’re gonna need half up front though.”

The Bounty Hunter nodded his affirmative as he approached. He handed off the credits as the man lazily motioned toward a rusting speeder bike that was leaned against the side of the station. It wasn’t ideal, but he could make it work—it kicked to life easily, there was no resistance in the handlebars when he steered it off onto the road, and it accelerated quickly enough to ease his discomfort. The job would get done quickly. It had to.

A siren of red lights from the tracking beacon notified the Bounty Hunter that he was close, and he veered off in front of a large brick building with several stories of balconies and large windows. The quarry was in one of these rooms, and with a shake of his head, the Bounty Hunter extended his telescope. Ultraviolet shapes collided against each other, the sounds of sex, drunken conversations, even a few way-to-intimate confessions erupted through his sound sensors. He grimaced, quietly cursing himself for agreeing to hunt down the smuggler.

“We’ve gotta be quick. Dealing with a bounty hunter problem,” The voice stood out through the chaos.

The Bounty Hunter muted his audio sensors, locking his gaze on his destination. _Nine stories up, four balconies to the right._

Mandalorians didn’t blend in because they didn’t have to, but blending in was definitely not an option for those that were covered in newly forged Beskar, which reflected the panorama of city lights ten-fold. And Mandalorians definitely didn’t frequent brothels on Keyorin, so walking in through the front door wasn’t an option. The Bounty Hunter opted for entry via balcony, and while the Rising Phoenix would be the easiest way to get to a destination that was 9 stories up in the air, it wasn’t subtle enough for his liking. He launched a grappling hook, felt the chord become taut, and began to climb.

Once reaching the balcony’s ledge, the Bounty Hunter carefully gained his balance on the railing as that was the only place where the large windows didn’t reach. He slowly inched forward to peak into the room. He wasn’t naive. He knew what he was potentially intruding on based on the _“We’ve gotta be quick,”_ comment, but he had been hoping to get the timing just right so that the quarry was vulnerable enough to be caught off guard and unarmed, but not…entirely indecent. The Bounty Hunter needed an advantage, not self-induced, unnecessary awkwardness.

He caught a glimpse of the couple on the bed, and expelled a breath of relief upon noticing they were both still clothed. The much larger man with balding brown hair and skin that pulled unnaturally across his features was pawing at the woman underneath him. The Bounty Hunter couldn’t quite make out whether the quarry was armed, forcing him to lean forward a little more to identify the possible existence of a filled blaster holster.

That’s when the woman’s eyes flickered up. Fast. And right as she did in one motion, she pushed the quarry’s head down so he could mouth at her neck. She rotated to get a better look. The Mandalorian felt his chest tighten. _So much for the element of surprise._

His hand went straight for his blaster, expecting her to announce his presence to the man attached to her. The Bounty Hunter prepped himself to shoot his way into the room. Her behavior didn’t change, though. She kept the smuggler occupied as if she hadn’t even noticedthe reflective suite of armor staring into the room. She glanced over to the balcony door and back to the Mandalorian. It felt so much like her eyes pierced straight through his armor that he almost didn’t notice her arms wrapping around the smuggler’s waist, unbuckling his holster, and tossing it across the room.

—

“You said you’d consider it,” Mara couldn’t stop her voice from becoming shrill, as Destrie finished the glass of wine he had helped himself to.

The Overlord had knocked on her door shortly after she’d finished combing through her hair. Her last client of the night was a couple of hours prior, and she was relieved to wash up and numb herself with a few glasses of wine to aid in falling alseep. Destrie had come to tell her directly that’d she had a few minutes to prepare herself to see one more client, a regular who stopped by every couple of months; Krow, a spice smuggler. Mara practically crumbled on the floor at the thought of having to entertain another man. She had learned long ago to no longer keep count of how many bodies she had to wash off of herself through out the day. Even her skin rejected the idea of being touched again.

“We considered it. And we decided that we can’t give you control of your schedules, there’s too much that can go wrong. Workers don’t know all of the in's and out’s that come with that kind of privilege. We’d lose credits,” He stated so evenly that Mara wanted to rip the glass out of his hands, crack it against the wall, and swipe a shard across his throat.

 _Be easy to work with._ “The Workers are exhausted, Destrie,” Mara pleaded, swallowing her hatred and grabbing his hand to pull him closer, “ _I’m_ exhausted. Can’t you tell I’m not ready for another client? I’ve rescheduled with Krow before, he’ll be mad, but he’s consistent. He’ll return tomorrow!”

Destrie glowered down at Mara for a moment, his eyes draining of any empathy he could have potentially managed had she not continued to burden him. He untangled her fingers from his and sighed, “He’ll be here soon, do whatever it is you have to do to prepare yourself.”

And with those parting words, Destrie turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, leaving Mara completely alone again. She listened to the balcony call for her, and pondered what it’d be like to stand up on the ledge, staring out at a city of gemstones. Could she step off of the railing and let herself fall helplessly into treasure? Would the wind engulf her entirely? Would the lights make her feel warm? Would it hurt when she hit the ground?

She wondered this for a while, spinning the Overlord’s glass around in between her fingers.

A steady knock interrupted her daydream. Slowly, she made her way toward the door and turned the knob. Krow burst into the room. He was larger and a bit older than Mara’s other clients. Brown hair, slowly turning gray, was beginning to thin at the top. He carried himself like a man who hadn’t realized that the prime of youth had already passed him by. “We’ve gotta be quick,” he grumbled, yanking Mara into a rushed, sloppy kiss that she reluctantly returned, “Dealin’ with a bounty hunter problem.”

“Another one?” Mara forced out a laugh against his mouth as he guided her deeper into the room.

Krow shrugged off his vest, rolling his eyes, “This one got hold of my partner. Roughed him up pretty good.”

Leaned back on her bed, Mara pulled the client by his collar so they were nose-to-nose. _The quicker he is, the quicker you can sleep._ “Then we better make this worth your time, huh?”

His mouth crashed against hers again, and she began her nightly chore of stowing herself away until she was ready to come out again. She snuggled into the corner of her mind, letting her body go on autopilot while she watched through her window. She stayed there until something forced her back into her room, on her bed, with a smuggler mouthing at hers; a glint of light that shone in the corner of her eye.

Even when she was working, tucked away in her own head behind foggy panes of glass, Mara knew the familiar way the skyscrapers reflected lights. She’d watched them for years. And whatever was reflecting in the corner of her eyes right now was new. And, oh, was it new. The shape was so metallic it almost disappeared against the skyline. She moved Krow’s head down so that he could kiss her neck and she could get a better look.

A notorious helmet with that infamous, thin T-shaped cutout down the center peaked just behind the threshold of the window. Mara knew Krow was wanted for smuggling the spice, Ryll, and even though he’d mentioned the Bounty Hunter going after his partner, she hadn’t expected a _Mandalorian_ Bounty Hunter. It felt like overcompensation for someone like Krow. It was of little relevance right now though. The dangerous possibility of freedom was beginning to flutter in Mara’s stomach.

Her eyes flickered to the balcony door. _Can he even get in here?_ It was unlocked…she didn’t lock the damn balcony door. The Mandalorian didn’t move though, and Mara was beginning to question his true intentions of peaking into the window of a brothel when she felt Krow’s blaster brush against her thigh.

Once her eyes returned to the Body of Armor outside, she maintained it, long and intentional, as she unbuckled Krow’s holster and flung it across the room, out of reach. He growled into her ear believing that the action was a result of her fingers trying to claw their way to his skin. Everything after happened quickly. The moment the blaster hit the floor, Krow’s mouth left her ear as he was aggressively jerked off of the bed and thrown on the ground. Krow launched up to rebut the attack, but was met with the Mandalorian’s fist and fell harder than before.

The Bounty Hunter lifted him off the ground, and the smuggler instinctively reached for his blaster. Upon finding nothing, the realization of Mara’s betrayal flooded his large face with crimson. “You filthy whore!” He growled.

The words dripped down his chin and slithered around Mara’s throat. Her vision began to tunnel. Krow dislodged himself from the Bounty Hunter’s grip and, in a way that seemed contradictory to his large stature, he leaped at her.

Mara didn’t try to dodge him. She let the collision happen, positioning her feet to hit his chest and kicking off as hard as she could to toss his body backwards. Krow’s head hit the ground with a sickening thud. Mara jumped upright, and grabbed a disoriented Krow by his temples, slamming him into the ground harder and harder each time. The organic sound of his skull crushing against the floor was the only thing she could hear.

“I’d like to bring this one in warm,” A raspy, baritone voice made hollow by a modulator interrupted Mara’s blind rage, and gloved hands grabbed her wrists and briskly pulled her away.

She hadn’t even noticed the smuggler was unconscious, and with her adrenaline-filled veins, the bounty hunter might as well have completely disappeared. She looked up at him, trying to regain a sense of her surroundings. “Unfortunate,” she managed.

The Mandalorian threw Krow’s blaster belt over his shoulder and hauled the smuggler’s unconscious body onto the balcony and wrapped a chord around his torso to lower him down. Mara observed a large speeder bike parked in an alley near by, and the adrenaline was still rushing through her bloodstream enough to sustain her boldness. “I need to get out of here,” she said, much softer than she had intended.

The bounty hunter didn’t address her, he kept lowering Krow’s dead weight toward the ground. The hour meant for a lack of a crowd, not that any one in the Outer Rim would be confused and put off by a body being suspended from a balcony.

Mara continued, a little desperately to her own ear, “There are control panels in here. If it registers that I’m gone during work hours, and I’m not able to get away fast enough, then I’m dead.” She vaguely motioned toward the vibrant blue screen in the center of the wall in the bedroom.

He glanced towards the glowing square for a split second, but immediately turned back to what he was doing. Still no response. Mara began to doubt the humanity of the figure in front of her. She studied him longer as Krow finally reached the ground, trying to find any kink or delay in the movement of his limbs, the turn of his helmet, the dexterity of his hands, how his torso turned before he marched forward. She even listened for the hum of machinery emanating from him. Maybe he was some kind of specialty upgrade New Republic Bounty Droid.

The Hunter pressed a button on his forearm, and the jet pack on his back burst into flames. She flinched away from the oppressive heat. He turned his back to her and lifted up off the ground to proceed to his original task. Mara’s heart plummeted to the floor, she could practically see it at her feet. The familiar ache of freedom gained and lost nearly stopped it beating and turned it to steel, until she heard a blaster discharge.

Mara looked up, realizing the Mandalorian was now facing her, hanging in the air, and already returning the blaster to his belt. She looked behind her quickly to see the control panel; blank, cracked, and smoking. _He blasted the motion censors…_

 _“You’re not scared are you, Mars?”_ Viv’s voice, clear as day, taunted.

When Mara turned back around the Mandalorian was gone. Before the opportunity had a chance to jostle awake any doubt, her legs were already moving back into her room, and her hands shuffled in the cluttered drawer of her bedside table. A pouch of credits grazed her fingers and she gripped it tight, shoving the worn-out wallet into her pocket. The city sang warnings as doubt’s eyes began to flutter open, but it didn’t matter. Freedom nipped at her heels—coaxing her forward.

Heights never had much of an impact on Mara. Even when Scoria taught her and the others how to repel, she hadn’t felt the tingling tremor of fear in her fingertips like she was now, staring at the chord that the Bounty Hunter left tied onto her balcony. Nine stories…Mara had never repelled nine stories. She quickly wrapped the rope around herself as she had been shown, swallowing hard once she realized how long it’d been since she’d practiced the technique. When Mara slipped over the side of the railing, hands and legs shaking, she realized that she had not felt brave since the day that Viv left for Canto Bight.

With each downward drop, Mara’s stomach flipped, and the rope cut painfully into her thigh. _Avoid the windows and they won’t catch you._ She looked down, saw the Bounty Hunter loading his quarry on the speeder bike just below. _Avoid the windows._ Kicking off of the structure of the building too eagerly, she slid too far down, too fast, her stomach caught in her throat as she panicked and whipped around, slamming into a panel of a window. Through the glass, she was face to face with wide, deep green eyes, pale skin papered over skeletal features, and an expertly groomed beard to cover them up. She could see him mouth her name, and Mara shook her head rapidly. _They caught you._ Her heart beat heavy in her chest as she fruitlessly begged him to just let her go. “Destrie, please, don’t…”

Black flooded into her peripheral vision. Destrie shook his head and turned to slam his fist on the control panel—igniting a distress signal that triggered sirens to scream and lights to flash. Commotion ensued. “Dammit, Destrie! You _ass!”_ Mara yelled so loud that she hoped he heard.

To the resounding sounds of alarms singing for her capture, Mara looked down anticipating how far the drop would be. _Doable._ The large speeder bike with _just_ enough extra room still lay still beneath her, the diver was swinging a metallic leg around its body to make his own getaway now that the wailing building was threatening to draw attention to all who were around it. If she could time it perfectly, if her calculations were accurate, this could work…and right before it passed underneath her, she let go of the rope. Wind swallowed her whole. If she hit the ground…

The bike jostled and aggressively lurched off of its course as Mara’s weight slammed into the seat. She nearly fell forward, but her arms flung back, grabbing ahold of her driver’s cape and allowing her to distribute her balance. A shooting pain zipped up her spine.

“ _What the hell!”_ The voice growled behind her, and Mara realized she was watching the city go by backwards, her back pressed against the Mandalorian’s.

Skyscrapers whipped by, and reality didn’t seem to have any stake in the ground any more. Until a vaguely familiar howl began to ring across the giant steel gemstones. Guards dressed head to toe in red on their own matching speeder bikes flooded out of the flashing and siren filled brothel. The three bikes squealed through every turn.

The Mandalorian shifted around to look at her, “I didn’t agree to being a getaway driver!”

“Too late! Please, keep your eyes _on the road_ , Mando!” Mara yelled.

“I got it,” He sighed. He _actually_ sighed—as if the three guards gaining on them and a runaway dropping onto his bike were mere expected inconveniences. How did he sound so calm when she could feel her heart pounding throughout her entire body?

Calm as the bounty hunter was, Mara watched in horror as one of the Guards pulled out a blaster. She wasted no time reaching behind her and toward the Bounty Hunter’s hips, pulling his blaster out of its holster.

Mara took aim and fired off a round. Her target fell forward, his weight distributing unequally across the bike, and his hand getting caught in the front wheel. The speeder flipped forward. She turned away from the horrific scene of his body sliding across pavement. City lights whirled by as she tried to lean with the speeder bike between her legs while her driver swerved down back streets, narrowly avoiding the gunfire that had begun to rain down on them.

The bounty hunter veered a sharp left turn without Mara expecting it. She misfired the blaster, nearly rolling off onto the street before bracing herself on a handle. “ _Dammit_ , watch it!” She screamed through clenched teeth. _No wonder all the Mandalorians are dead—they can’t even see where they’re going._

Mara was beginning to allow irritation to cloud her head, but the remaining two guards squealed into the left turn after them. By entering the narrow alley side by side, gravity forced them to collide, a little at first, but the might of their collision was enough to cause them to lose control. It seemed like the visual of the bikes and bodies hitting the ground happened first, only to be followed by the crack of metal colliding and the screech of it sliding across the concrete.

Reality collected itself around Mara gradually. The wind blowing her hair forward, her inability to catch her breath, the odd blaster in her hand that she quickly returned to her driver’s holster, a slight twinge of guilt for doubting the bounty hunter. She carefully and clumsily twisted herself to face forward—turning her back to the bejeweled sprawl.

—

The Mandalorian didn’t disarm the control panel for the motion censors or leave the rope dangling on the balcony with the intention of actually _taking_ the runaway Prostitute.

Her ability to knock a man double her size out cold had impressed him, but he was mostly grateful that the job was made easier. He didn’t want to feel indebted to her, and the action of rotating back toward her to give her an opportunity for escape felt more involuntary than it did an active decision that he thought through. He almost didn’t. As she was questioning his driving skills and using his blaster as if it were her own, he was regretting his decision to turn around all together.

They came to a stop at the outskirts of the city. Small buildings and huts with dust-ridden windows and hollowed out interiors lined the bare street. The eclectic splendor of the run-down city had obviously not leaked down to these parts. The smuggler was still tied to the front of the speeder bike and coming in and out of consciousness. It was beginning to worry the Mandalorian, he had to get back to the Razor Crest, _now_. His pulse quickened at the thought of what he left sleeping in a makeshift hammock that he’d fashioned together one night several weeks prior. “This should get you enough of a head start,” he turned around to face the runaway.

The woman slipped off the bike. This was the first time he had gotten a good look at her. She moved like smoke—twirling swiftly back toward the city and taking a small step in its direction. Silver sheer fabric spilled down her legs and even the smallest gust of wind made it twist against her form. Slivers of black fabric wrapped tight around her torso and tied off at the back of her neck. There was a lot of skin; burnished bronze. As far as clothing went, the brothels obviously wanted the Prostitutes to exemplify exactly what the patrons wanted to buy, which meant showing off the product. Quaking hands pulled back dark hair that erupted in tight curls from her scalp in every which way. Burning amber eyes absorbed the skyline. A glint of metal, the size of a thumbnail, shone on her temple. A tracker, maybe? But if that were the case, she wouldn’t dare leave with it still attached to her, right?

“What do I do now?” She whispered so quietly that the Mandalorian was sure no one would have caught it unless they had the sound enhancers he did.

He had decided to take the chance to rid himself of the burden of her and was kicking his heel down to drive away when she spun around. “Wait!” She cried out, “You’re a bounty hunter, right? That means you have a ship. Can you take me to Cloud City? Or Bespin? I don’t have many credits, I know. But—”

“I already told you that I didn’t agree to being a getaway driver,” he stated, feeling the speeder’s steady hum and triggering the bike to move forward again.

The damned woman sprung in front of his path, forcing him to come to a jolting stop. She was leaned over the front, grabbing the handle bars to keep them steady. The Mandalorian tilted his head in annoyance. “I know-I know I’ve put you through way more than you bargained for tonight. But I’m not useless. I’m a good worker, and—” She trailed off when the Mandalorian scoffed at her offer. _Who does she think she is dealing with?_

“No! No-Not that. You saw me. I can fight. Blasters, melee weapons, combat; you name it. I’m…an okay pilot. I know a bit of engineering. I can work off the credits for fuel that it’d take to get me there. _Please_ , I just-I just need to get to Bespin,” Her voice shook from her determination.

The Runaway looked through his visor like she was staring down the barrel of a blaster during an ambush; focused, but with that small glint from the fear of the unknown. The Mandalorian glanced over her shoulder, in the direction where his ship was planted, and pondered her proposal for a long moment, “You have a name?”

There was a single beat before the woman released her grip on the speeder bike. “It’s Mara,” she replied.

No family name. Did prostitutes even have family names? It didn’t matter. Standing in front of him was an opportunity to ease the constant dread the Mandalorian carried in the pit of his stomach over leaving a dire mission alone in a ship without any protection. Regardless of her occupation, _somehow_ , the woman could fight, and based on the expression that washed across her face, she was just desperate enough to stay honest. He could spare an extra stop in the Outer Rim if it meant getting through the next job without worry.

The Mandalorian leaned forward, bracing himself against the handle bars, “How are you with kids?”

_—_

A hurricane whirled around Mara as she stared into the suit of armor, trying to process the question he’d just asked her. _How are you with kids?_ It shattered her theory of the Mandalorian being a new, expertly engineered Bounty Hunting droid to render IG units obsolete.

For the first time in weeks, though, a path had expanded in front of Mara. And the most dangerous possibility emerged. Hope could be found again. Hope was in Cloud City. Hope gave Mara the blind, fleeting courage necessary to not hesitate at all when she said, “I’m great with kids.”

With that, the Bounty Hunter jerked his helmet to the side as a nonverbal, g _et on._ Mara hastily scurried behind him and swung her leg over to mount the bike. The dilapidated structures on the outskirts of the city whizzed by, and as she watched them become exponentially more crumbled, the gravity of all that she had just done and agreed to began to press down on her. There were a few moments, thinking back, where she realized caution may have been beneficial. Now, though, Mara was acutely aware that she was seeking passage from a Bounty Hunter, who hunts and kills for a living, to a planet she’s never been to as an attempt to find a woman who may not even be alive.

As doubt was beginning to disintegrate Mara’s plan, an absolute relic of a ship approached in the distance. It was settled beside a station where two human men sat under a light with a bottle that they passed back and forth to each other, watching the speeder bike as it came to a stop. “Wouldya look at that, Jarric! ‘S back within the hour! Hand over your credits!” The taller one slurred out the ends of each word, and slapped his friend, Jarric on his chest, who grumbled in a language Mara couldn’t translate.

Krow was beginning to squirm in the ropes and slowly regain his hold on consciousness as the Mandalorian pulled the bike to a stop and dismounted. The two men approached the bounty hunter, the taller one began to inch closer toward Mara as he spoke, “We hada bet, y’know! See how fast you’d get back ‘ere.”

The Bounty Hunter didn’t indulge the man. He merely reached into his belt and pulled out a pouch of credits to hand over, “Thank you for the speeder.”

The tall one waved the credits back at the bounty hunter who had already returned to his quarry. The man fixed his swollen, bloodshot eyes on Mara. His gaze slithered over her entire body and she was left feeling like she was covered filth. “You two don’t have to go flyin’ off so fast,” He approached her now, stale liquor hung on his breathe, “We could work out another payment for the bike, huh? M’ name’s Yevin, and you look like one o’ those expensive girls.”

“Whaddya say, Mando!” Yevin hollered toward the bounty hunter now, who had paused from pulling Krow off of the speeder bike and stared at the scene, “You mind sharin’?”

Mara’s blood ran cold. “Is this going to turn into a problem?” The Mandalorian asked so nonchalantly, that it almost didn’t sound like a threat.

“No! All’s I’m sayin is you already got ‘er for the night,” A sweaty finger tapped on the metal in Mara’s temple and her chest almost caved in on itself at the realization of the synced technology. Rage began to dig its claws into her. Yevin laughed, “There’s no reason we can’t _all_ have a some fun with this little piece of tech-”

Yevin wasn’t able to finish the sentence—not that she would have been able to hear it if he had. Mara, controlled by the claws in her chest, reared back and slammed her fist into his nose. The bone and cartilage caved in easily, collapsing beneath her knuckles, staining them red. Blood splattered against the concrete as Yevin drunkenly collapsed onto the sidewalk, writhing and moaning in pain. Jarric stole to his friend’s side to help him off of the ground, yelling at her in the language she still couldn’t understand. Mara looked back at the Mandalorian, hoping that he witnessed what she was capable of when men forgot that Workers weren’t meant for target practice. He didn’t seem too privy on the inner-workings of brothels, and the reality that the device in her skull and the technology that undoubtedly laid in his armor granted him full access to her sight. Mara planned to keep it that way.

The helmet’s visor was fixed on the two drunk men as Mara picked up the pouch of credits that Yevin had dropped when he landed on the ground. She returned to the bike to help untie Krow. “Was that necessary?” The Mandalorian asked.

Mara shrugged, and grabbed a fistful of Krow’s shirt to wipe the blood off of her knuckles, “Proving a point.”

She helped him drag Krow’s large form up the ramp and into the old ship. “To them or me?” The Bounty Hunter asked, shoving the smuggler into some kind of container, and pressing a button.

Fog filled the hull of the ship, and Mara stared dumb at Krow suddenly transforming into a statue right before her eyes. “Both,” she mumbled without really thinking about it.

The Mandalorian either didn’t hear her response, or didn’t care. He allowed the conversation to die; a staple trait of the warriors. Mara had come to find out about it through the years of hearing stories of the exceedingly rare occasions when one happened to find themselves within the walls of the Brothel. Mandalorians were ancient, anonymous warriors, with incredible skill, and no desire for pleasantries. Their dedication to warfare from Scoria’s stories of Mandalore were Mara’s favorite, but they were bittersweet retellings. As they were almost always followed by Scoria’s overpowering guilt that would tear her apart.

Instead of conversation, the armored figure rummaged silently through various drawers and compartments that blended into the metallic walls of the ship. Mara was standing aimlessly, when the bounty hunter handed her a pile of fabric. Clothes _._ And she was filled to the brim with the discomfort that came with being overwhelmingly exposed in front of someone who was not receptive to it, realizing she was wearing nothing more than just strips of cloth and utterly sheer flowing pants that barely covered her at all. Her arms wrapped automatically around her body, a vain attempt at modesty that she hadn’t realized was engrained in her.

Without a word or even an obvious glance in her direction, the bounty hunter lifted himself up a ladder and disappeared into what Mara hoped would be a cockpit. The anxiety of remaining in the city had begun to weigh on her. The inside of a Holding House appeared in front of her at the mere thought of the Brothel Guards somehow finding their way into the ship. The fear of the impending doom that awaited Workers who had been brave enough to escape their captors, but not lucky enough to avoid getting caught made her chest tighten. While she had never seen a Holding House for herself, she had heeded the warnings of her Overlord’s; they may have been liars and manipulators, but they took their methods of punishment seriously. The apathy she had against Destrie’s threats of Holding Houses and retirement only the night before felt incredibly foolish in this moment, when they were both staring her dead in the face.

As the ship rumbled and roared to life, Mara, trying not to think too hard about the future, slipped off her clothes and pulled the large tunic and pants over herself—they were soft, neutral tones. They were too large on her, but she tied them both in a way to keep everything on her body as they were meant to be. She looked around blankly. Suddenly unsure of what exactly she should be doing now that she had slowed down enough to realize she was as far away from Keyorin as she had ever been since she’d left the dark hull of a smuggler’s ship. Very suddenly, the floor felt like it gave way underneath her, and Mara braced herself against the closest wall. Her hand hit a button and a hatch opened to reveal a small room where a mat lay underneath a small hand-made hammock that cradled a tiny green…creature.

A flash of silver in the corner of her eye warned Mara that she was no longer alone.

Embarrassment erupted, if she hadn’t been intruding before, she definitely was now. It felt incredibly easy to trespass on someone who spent their life willingly concealing themselves under metal and without a proper name. She deliberately fixed her eyes on where she imagined the Mandalorian’s should be if he happened to be humanoid, she couldn’t be so sure, “I-I backed into the button, I wasn’t prying,” she tried not to sound like child who was apologizing after being scorned, but she wasn’t confident in her execution.

The Mandalorian shook his helmet, gently taking the creature out of the hammock. He did it with such seemingly uncharacteristic care, that the baby never even jostled out of his slumber. Large green eyelids fluttered the slightest bit, but Mara was more entranced by _ears_. Huge ears that seemed to be way too large for such a small form. She reached out to touch them, but the Mandalorian’s modulated voice broke her out of her daze, and her hand bolted back down to her side, “I’ll get you to Cloud City, but there’s a job I have to see to first. You’ll watch him until I get it done.”

Forcing her eyes to travel upward to face the visor, Mara nodded, “Sure…but what-what is he? I’ve never—”

“Get some rest if you need to,” The Mandalorian interrupted, uninterested in answering any questions, and motioning toward the mat that lay under the baby’s hammock, “We’ll arrive tomorrow evening.”

With an audible swish of his cape, the Bounty Hunter turned, sleeping baby in hand, and climbed back into the cock pit, leaving Mara alone to stare into the sleeping quarters, questioning what her safest move would be. Her eyelids were heavy and her knees shook from exhaustion, there was no denying it, but there was a vulnerability that she knew she had to consider. _Sleep…_

The calls for rest won Mara over in the end, and she slid herself onto the mat and studied the control panel in laid into the metal just inside the threshold of the compartment. She pressed a button that sealed her inside of the small space, locking herself in, knowing that the hiss of the doors opening would awaken her should her getaway driver decide to quickly forget the point that she had proven to Yevin. Men, regardless of species, were so prone to forgetting—or maybe they were just better suited to ignore…

Curled up on a hard mat, and against all odds, sleep came to Mara just as she concluded that if push comes to shove, even against a Mandalorian, she may not win, but she’d put up a pretty good fight.


	3. Hunter and Prey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of abuse, panic attack symptoms

_15 years before the Escape:_

“Desire is the most simple, predictable thing in the galaxy if you just know how to utilize it.”

Scoria had spat the saying out constantly since she had arrived. Viv, comfortable with the new leadership, would launch into an impression of it that’d even make a smile stretch across the Madam’s face, and then he’d tease her about how some day he’d create a game; a gulp of liquor every time she said it. "No one would come out alive!" He'd say through laughter.

Mars was never able to get it to fit right in her mouth though. The new routine had begun to settle into its place, and Scoria was propped back in her office with her legs crossed at the ankles on her ornately carved desk. The space was richly decorated with golds and reds, fitting the velvet and warmth of the rest of the Brothel. Mars was executing a new part of her day; scheduling her clients for the following night. She was reading over their chain codes, and deciding who she’d accept. It was a tedious process; once potential clients had their chain code approved, they’d pick the Workers they liked. Then, in return, Workers had to accept them. Scoria figured a tedious process would weed out potentially reckless clients. A recently decommissioned storm trooper who had suddenly popped up in the list made Mars laugh, “How typical of men. Leave the battle field and go straight to a brothel.”

“Just wait until this blasted war ends,” Scoria chuckled along with her, “We’ll be flooded. Those men are chomping at the bit. Desire is the most simple, predictable thing—”

“If you know how to utilize it,” Mars finished the sentence with as much sarcastic perkiness as she could manage while not taking her eyes off of the chain codes.

The Madam sat up to reposition herself, gesturing dramatically in Mars’ direction, “You’re finally getting it!”

Mars stared at the chain codes without reading them, “And what if I don’t want to utilize it?” She asked, half being playful and half requesting permission she had never really received before.

Scoria waited for Mars to look up at her. Their eyes met, and she said, with seriousness that didn’t seem fitting for the banter they had just been engaged in, “Then you don’t.”

The room crumbled around Mars now. Or maybe she was crumbling. Or maybe everything she knew to be true was crumbling. _Then you don’t_. _Then you don’t. Then you don’t._ As if it were something so easy, as if she was allowed to simply have a choice. To say yes. To say no. To say nothing at all.

“I…” Mars began, wondering where the words went. They were slipping through her fingers, until she was able to grab hold of them and stretch her mouth into a smile, “I think I’ll take the storm trooper. Out of sheer curiosity.”

“Curiosity, hm?” Scoria said with a raised eyebrow.

A chuckle escaped from Mars’ lungs, almost painfully. She stood up and turned her back to the Madam. “And perhaps I love a man in uniform!” She said lightly, hoping that if she changed the subject, her heart would stop beating in her ears.

Scoria swiftly looped her arm around Mars’ waist and guided her out into the common area. “What are you doing?” She asked, looking toward her Madam. The sandstorm woman's gate quickened to catch the lift.

“We’re going out,” Scoria answered plainly.

The lift slid shut, and silence filled the space around the women. “Scoria,” Mars countered quietly. Her voice was doing that ridiculous, instinctual thing; making room for silence that didn’t want to be broken, “I have blaster training in an hour, you know this.”

“You’re a great shot already, we’re going to do a different kind of training today.” The Madam shot Mars a sideways grin, and pulled her out into the street.

—

The kid cooed, twisting his silver ball around in his three fingers. Din had become fond of these peaceful, quiet moments with the womprat as he flew the Crest towards the next job on Dantooine.

 _“By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father…”_ the words of the Armorer had settled heavy in the pit of his stomach where they rested since they were uttered.

He understood he had to find where the kid belonged, but exploration like that required credits and while it may not be the safest occupation for a stand-in guardian, bounty hunting was all Din knew. Plus, now with the runaway assisting, he could solely focus on getting a job done and not worry about leaving the kid in the ship or with strangers he stumbled upon along the way. And her motivations were deep-rooted, and straightforward; perfect to utilize for his benefit. Keep her honest.

Rustling from below the cock pit interrupted Din’s train of thought. He glanced back at the kid, and murmured sarcastically, “No choking this one out, kid.” Giant brown eyes blinked up at him.

Soft thuds grew as Mara ascended the ladder. Before pulling herself into the cabin, she called out, “May I?”

The Mandalorian turned his helmet slightly in her direction. He could barely see her peaking over the edge of the opening through the doorway through his visor. He nodded once. She raised herself into the pit, and silence made itself at home once again.

High pitched, happy squeals broke the quiet, and the Bounty Hunter swiveled to make sure the little monster wasn’t attempting to murder the new caretaker. Luckily, the woman was still breathing and kneeling by the child who was buckled into the co-pilot’s chair; her head tilted down, eyes wide, as she reached her pointer finger out for his tiny hands to touch. The moment the kid grabbed hold of her, a slight smile flashed across her face. “Hey buddy,” she whispered playfully, “Name’s Mara. You’re quite the spectacle, huh?”

The child dropped the metal ball and grabbed her hand with all six of his fingers now, he tilted his head at her, and she stroked his face. With that, the Mandalorian returned to the stars.

After cooing at the child for a while, Mara sunk into the other co-pilot chair. “Where are we going?”

“Dantooine.”

“Are you…” The Mandalorian looked at her when she didn’t continue on. She was lost in space. The streams of light might as well have pulled the sentence out of her before she clicked back to reality. “Are you going after another bounty, or is this some other job?”

“Another bounty.”

The stars whipped by. They sat, surrounded by quiet. In the reflection of the glass, the Mandalorian watched Mara absorb the lights around her. He took a small bit of comfort knowing that the runaway was just as accepting of silence as he always had been, and she hadn’t pressed him for the usual details people craved. _What’s your real name? Where are you from? Do you ever take the helmet off?_ All questions he found to be pointless given his overall appearance. He’d grown accustomed to ignoring the inquiries, but never really understood the notion of asking masked men for personal details. There was relief in company that picked up on this.

Hyperspace finally spit Mara back out. He noticed in the reflection that her hand had been idly tracing over the silver device on her temple as she studied the back of his head. She seemed to be weighing something as she tapped its surface a few times, wincing a little bit, and standing to leave without saying a word.

Din shot the kid a quick glance, “Glad you learned some manners.” And the sound of galaxies whipping by was all that accompanied him for the next few hours.

Muted clangs of metal erupted below the cock pit, tearing apart the peace that had resettled around the Mandalorian. He flipped on autopilot, grabbed the child, and dropped down below to find Mara propping herself against the wall with a hand that was tightly wrapped around a scalpel. She was gasping for air and hadn’t even realized that he’d entered the space. Blood was all he could see. It dripped down her neck and she was trying to keep it from pooling at her feet by using the strips of black fabric she had been wearing the night before to wipe it away.

Tear-filled amber eyes looked back at him in panic. Thick red was pouring out of her temple, the silver implant was stained and wet with dark burgundy. _It has to be a tracker. “Oh!_ Sorry…I’m trying not to make a mess…There are no mirrors. I can’t see what I’m doing,” Mara uttered, her voice coated in agony.

The Mandalorian set the child down in his hammock, and ripped the scalpel she undoubtedly searched his belongings for out of her hand, “Is it a tracker?”

“Y-Yes,” _Really bad liar. “_ But I keep it disengaged. I need it out of my head.”

With the slow burn of annoyance seething in his throat from a stranger looking through his ship without his knowledge, the Mandalorian gathered the appropriate supplies; a clean rag, wire cutters, screw driver, the cauterizer, and pulled a storage container away from the wall. “Sit,” he commanded coldly, tapping once on the metal surface. She obeyed.

Engulfed in pain, Mara kept her eyes glued to him as he took a knee beside her. She never pulled away her gaze, like she was trying to predict his next movement. Her head turned so he could get a closer look as he wiped her blood away with a rag. It looked like she had just tried cutting it out of thin skin. The wound was gnarly from blind stabbing and digging. He unscrewed the plate of the device, exposing its wiring. _This tracker looks…wrong._ White, blue lights slid down the tiny wires consistently. The largest wire was already disconnected and fell down against her red-stained cheek. The others were so thin, not connected to any port that would allow for transmission. _There’s no way this has the capability to communicate with anything it’s not attached to anymore. Maybe she wasn’t lying._

The child cooed, yanking concentration away from the Mandalorian. He reached down to the control panel inlaid into his armor to press the hatch closed without looking. It didn’t close, he looked down and his finger was pressed on the wrong button. He made the correction, heard the hiss of the door shutting, and returned to the tracker—not tracker—device—in the bleeding woman’s skull.

Mara’s breathing was different. It was intentionally steady, like she was suppressing a scream. The Mandalorian pulled her jaw to face him, only to find it clenched tight. “What’s wrong with y-” He began to ask until he saw that her eyes were blank, foggy white, and staring at dead space in between them.

She was horrifying; stained and dripping thick crimson, her clouded retinas twitched ever so slightly side to side. The lights in the wires no longer travelled in systematic spurts, they were fully illuminated. He shifted a bit to raise his hand to wave it in front of her face, and Mara, blind and clumsy, shoved him away. She slid backward on the storage container.

The Mandalorian didn’t budge from her push, and worried that he’d done permanent damage when he unscrewed the device and the thicker wire fell free. “What’s going-” He started to say, but was distracted by Mara backing herself against a wall.

Her foggy gaze remained hardened and focused as she listened for any sign movement. “Give it back, Mandalorian!” She was practically yelling, her voice trembling.

He stared at her for a beat, unsure what she meant, “What the hell is going on?” The bounty hunter demanded, feeling a complicated mix of disturbance from his role in her empty white eyes and slight irritation at her anger when he wasn’t sure what he had done to warrant it. _Give it back, Mandalorian!_ As if he did this on purpose? What use would he have in blinding the person who’s supposed to protect his foundling?

“My sight!” she squealed, “Give it back _right now_! I’ve cracked a man’s skull because he blinded me, so unless you want—”

The Mandalorian found himself instinctually going for the button on his forearm. The wires began to pulsate again, and the white fog melted away. Mara’s clear gaze focused back on him. She leaned against the wall, rubbing her eyes and catching her breath.

“What is that?” He demanded, pulling the storage container closer and watching her take a small step forward.

“Old technology,” Mara growled, thinking about what she would say next and staring deadpan into the space between them, “It interrupts the optic nerve.”

“Why am I synced to it?”

She didn’t respond. Her fingers reached up to her eye sockets again and she pressed into them hard. “They keep Workers in line. If we try to escape, we’re blinded. I found my way around that part,” she touched the thick wire that dangled, lifeless, from the device.

“That didn’t answer my question,” he pointed out, patience starting to escape his grasp.

The woman was obviously not interested in providing an explanation. She was frozen in place, her eyes avoided him at all cost with her hands balled into tight fists. The Mandalorian waited, patiently giving her a chance to explain on the off chance she changed her mind. The answer popped into existence in front of him. _There’s no reason we can’t all have a some fun with this little piece of tech._ He hadn’t cared enough to wonder what the drunk meant by that in the moment. “It syncs to anyone with the same tech. You have no control over it,” he mused. 

At last, Mara met his gaze. Her stare as lifeless as it had been when the tiny wires were all illuminated white. “Will you,” this was the first moment the Mandalorian had seen her look truly unsure of herself, “still help me take it out?”

The realization that she had been protecting herself from _him_ all along hit like a blow from a Mudhorn. It should have been obvious—her joke—or what he thought had been a joke—about proving a point to both him and the drunk shopkeeper, how she slept with the doors sealed shut and locked herself in, her insistence that the technology was merely a disconnected tracker. Mara’s unwillingness to disclose the information in the first place made sense, her protectiveness made sense. They didn’t trust each other, but they shared the ability to survive. The Mandalorian could work with that—existing as both hunter and prey were roles he had become used to.

He hardly gave enough time to let the question leave her mouth and drop on the ground before he nodded toward the storage container as his sign for her to sit back down. She cautiously returned to her seat and he lifted the wire cutters and started snipping the thin lines until every blinking light was gone.

—

It was slow work twisting the technology out of Mara’s skull. More notably, though, it was excruciating. The moment the last wire was cut, a pressure behind her eyes that she hadn’t noticed before released and she nearly fell out onto the floor. That was the last of the relief.

The silliness in her stomach for getting caught red-handed in the middle of self-mutilation and then questioning whether the Mandalorian would take the device after learning of its purpose only grew bigger in the pit of her gut. He hadn’t said anything since she made it clear that she was worried he would find pleasure in her powerlessness, and his silence was not comforting. His quick response to continue working without hesitation, however, provided some solace.

The Mandalorian’s actions were always deliberate. He didn’t move, speak, or breath a certain way without having intense purpose. Mara concentrated on his slow, steady movements as he twisted a scalpel into the sides of the metal device as an attempt to separate it from the skin that had grown around it.

Mara couldn’t handle it any more, she broke the silence. Addressing the room he had locked the creature in, “Is he, uh, yours?” Was all she could think to ask at this point since the stabbing pain shooting through her entire face was clouding her conversational skills. _Is he, uh, yours? What a stupid question._

He remained quiet, wiping some blood away with a rag. At the peak of her growing embarrassment, his voice finally broke in, “He was a bounty, now he’s a foundling.”

Scoria had told her and the others of Mandalore, and the creed of the Mandalorians—they were inherently neutral, but noble; a point of view most likely caused by habit of setting Scoria’s second-hand violent tales of Death Watch aside. Though there was something exciting to Mara about an organization and a planet that rebelled against the Empire to such a degree that even they, with the largest military in the galaxy and overbearing reign, couldn’t control it. The knife scraped her skull, Mara hissed. “So you saved him,” She choked out, trying to regain some semblance of dignity, she couldn’t think of anything worse than actually crying in front of the warrior.

“He saved me too,” He said warmly.

The suit of armor set down the tools and grabbed the device between his forefinger and thumb. The first hard turn knocked the breath out of her, she pushed his hand away, as a nonverbal cue to just let her rest. He listened. If Mara hadn’t been gasping for air with a bolt stuck in her skull, she’d probably smile at his comment. But her head was too foggy to even respond to it.

“What’s in Cloud City?” He asked, Mara would have thought it was an earnest question given his tone, but she was moments away from the most painful part of this process, and she knew the Bounty Hunter was trying to distract her. She graciously allowed it.

Scoria’s voice pounded in her head, _“I’ll face my ending in that damned city in the clouds”_

“Scoria…” she whispered, hoping that saying her name out loud would move the pain from her head to her chest, she desperately yearned for any relief from the feeling of the metal twisting against her skull.

“Who is that?”

“She ran the brothel before the Overlords came back. She trained us to protect ourselves, she gave us freedom, she called us Workers, let us control our pay and time,” He braced her neck firmly with his hand and grabbed the device, but didn’t move a single muscle. Was he actually listening? Or just keeping her distracted? “She was too powerful, too able to lead. It’d cost the Overlords…a lot of credits if Workers were no longer slaves, so they took her away. The last thing she said to me was something about a city in the clouds.” She was expecting him to twist the metal out of her head now, and she flinched with anticipation, but he remained as still as ever.

“Do you think she’s alive?” The Mandalorian said evenly, as if he had asked her opinion on something so meaningless, like the weather.

Mara stared into the expressionless helmet, clenching her teeth. His method of distraction was working heartbreakingly well, she felt the familiar stabbing at the hole in her chest that she’s been poking and prodding for months. Tears stung at the back of her eyes, and just as she opened her mouth to speak, he twisted hard. Pulling the device out quicker than she could process the pain and pressing the rag against her temple. Tears never spilled over, and neither did her answer.

“Hold this down, firm,” He commanded, and Mara’s hand took the place of the Mandalorian’s as he picked up a small rod that she didn’t recognize. He noticed her confusion, “Laser cauterizer. It’ll seal the wound.”

“It’ll leave a scar,” she said quietly, not really intending to say it out loud. Would anyone be able to pick up on what the scar meant? Would it give her away as a Worker? Something large and painful slithered into her stomach at the thought. Workers who escape were sent away. Would Holding House hunters know how to identify them by the scars on their faces?

A scoff escaped through the modulator, “You’re worried about appearances when half the galaxy had access to technology that could blind you?”

“No, it’s not…that,” Mara stammered, watching him flick a button that made the cauterizer buzz with a small laser that lit at the top and he held out his hand for her to hand him the rag, “People will know…what I am—was. It’ll always be on my—” The laser met her skin, and she flinched from the burn, the rest of the sentence was pulled out of her mind entirely.

“Does that matter?”

The buzzing amplified when it met flesh, and the stinging heat spread across her face. Air filtered through her lungs in short, painful bursts. She hadn’t even realized she was bracing herself against the Mandalorian, a tight grip locked onto his knee. “I’m not sure,” she breathed honestly.

The horrible laser device pulled away from her face, and the Mandalorian stood quickly, digging through another storage container where he pulled out a dark piece of some kind of thick fabric that closely resembled the cape he had draped over his shoulders. It took a bit of force for him to tear it apart, and he handed the shredded fabric off to Mara. “No one will know what you were now,” the Mandalorian offered.

Mara stared at the fabric for a moment; running her hands over it. The soft cloth caught on the dry skin that was peeling at her nail beds as she tied it tight around her forehead. The wound throbbed beneath the covering. At least now she wouldn’t be able to touch it. Maybe it’d even heal.   
  


—

The Razor Crest landed on Dantooine just as the sky turned pink.

Mara hauled herself up the ladder as soon as she felt the engines rumble, and gravity shift. She wanted to watch the planet emerge in front of her, and she didn’t even ask the Mandalorian permission before she practically slid into cockpit, leaning against an empty copilot’s chair to stare out the windows. The planet expanded so large in front of her that the panoramic windows couldn’t even cover its scale. And it was so _green._

Clouds misted across the atmosphere, slowly swirling in on themselves and leisurely crawling onward. Scars of blue slithered across the green—lakes and rivers speckling throughout the surface. Mara couldn’t stop herself from marveling at the sight—the antithesis of the grey and steel Keyorin, Dantooine was soft and lush. As the ship entered into the atmosphere, rolling hills grew out of the grass, miniature trees dwarfed against large stone cliffs that encased glittering stagnant water. “Viv, if you could see this…” Mara whispered to herself, the sight making her yearn for his presence more than she had since she stepped off of the ledge of her balcony to be swallowed up by wind.

The Mandalorian whipped around to face her, and Mara realized large brown eyes were staring at her as well. Viv had always mocked her for voicing her thoughts out loud without fully realizing it. She’d always ignored his jokes, writing the habit off as one she had picked up when she was left alone for days at a time as a girl, but now she actually felt heat rise in her cheeks. “I have only ever seen the city, this is...,” Mara trailed off, trying to keep herself from smiling too wide as she returned her attention to the sky the sun was painting shades of pink.

The ship came to rest in a hanger just outside of a bazaar that stretched across the plain. The Mandalorian set his foundling in a floating crib, even handing Mara a small, silver blaster that she promptly tucked into her waistband. They sauntered down the ramp after it had hissed open. Cool air, scented with the sweet beginnings of nightfall drifted around Mara and pulled her outside. “Where are we going?” She called after him.

“We’re finding you some lodging.”

Mara readjusted her oversized clothes as she walked, the tunic fell down her shoulder. “Just me?”

“And the child.”

“What about you?” She tried not to get too distracted by the bustling crowd that was buzzing just ahead in the heart of the bazaar. And the music that bounced off of the buildings and played faintly in the distance. And the string of lights draped across the street flickering on as the pink sky darkened. And something smelled _so good._

The Mandalorian scanned the area like he was walking through a potential battle ground. How could he be worried in a place like this? “I’m leaving tonight,” he stated.

Mara stared up at the twinkling lights above, cracking a mischievous smile in his direction, “I must say, this is an elaborate way to drop a baby off with a stranger and make run for it.”

There was a sound that came from the floating orb, and Mara realized the small green baby was quickly exchanging glances between her and the Mandalorian. His gloved hand rested lightly on the top of a fuzzy head. Immediately, she realized her joke was not well-received, and her stomach twisted into knots. “ _No_ ,” the warrior hissed at her, and his helmet dipped down to look at the child who blinked up at him, “A couple of weeks. Tops.”

 _How bizarre._ She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the pair as they walked. He was so quick to comfort the creature, “Did he just understand me?” Mara asked, a little dumbfounded as she wasn’t sure how sentient the baby truly was.

“Yes.”

A thin wire wrapped around her heart and pulled tight. Mara surely wasn’t the type to know every detail of child development, but the creature was an infant. How would it be possible for him to comprehend anything she was saying? And if he had, how horrible of her to make him question his armored caretaker’s devotion. She slowed her pace to look into the thrumming pod where the child narrowed his eyes at her the slightest bit. “I’ll make it up to you, buddy,” she whispered.

The large, suspicious eyes didn’t seem to believe Mara, but they immediately pulled away from her when the sound of music began to erupt from the opposite end of the street. Shacks made from hardened clay and straw packed roofs lined a dirt path that was filled to the brim with wooden carts and stands that crowds of beings huddled around for fresh fruits and vegetables, or knick knacks crafted by artisans, or some kind of fried food that Mara had never seen before. She practically bounced through the market, the Mandalorian following her close behind. Stopping in front of a band of small beings that were all playing different elaborately shaped brass instruments, the planet disintegrated. In place of the plains, bazaar, and pink sky, a cantina on Keyorin sprouted around Mara. Viv was next to her and grabbing her hand to twirl her around to dance; not in the way of lovers or people who desperately wanted to be lovers, but in the way where everything felt so inexplicably good that the only way to express it is to let the music take over your muscles; the way where life breathes so much air into your lungs the only thing you can think to do is to throw your arms around a person you adore and dance.

“Hey,” a modulated voice yanked her out of the cantina and back onto a grass covered planet, her heart shattered, “Come on, there’s an inn here.”

The building he motioned her toward towered over the rest. It was all clay and straw and imperfectly blown glass window panes that distorted everything beyond them just enough to make one’s vision vibrate off of them. Small balconies protruded from its walls, a few beings leaned on the railings, enjoying the music that had erupted below. The inside was just as eclectic—candles and warm lights casted an orange glow across the walls and trinkets that hung on them. The Mandalorian paid up front, a gesture that the clerk immediately perked up to, as he scanned Mara’s handprint and turned it into the key for the room’s control panel.

The Mandalorian escorted them up their quarters and while the room paled in comparison to the velvet-covered walls and blankets she had grown up with on Keyorin, it was cozy, warm, and there was a proper bed that Mara stared at with longing eyes. A gloved hand dropped a leather pouch of credits into her hands and made a passive comment about how it should cover the costs of care and new clothes if she needed them. The second half made Mara’s skin crawl from the residue of memories where men had bought her clothes. While this was different, and she knew it was different, hearing the words spoken always made her cringe.

And, then, with not much more than a nod and one last check in on the baby, the warrior turned to leave. “Woah, no you don’t,” Mara slammed the door just before he could reach it, “You’re going to answer some questions before you leave me with your kid for two weeks.”

He looked down at the child and back up at Mara, “What else do you need to know?”

 _What else do you need to know?_ As if she was supposed dive head first into caring for a species she had know experience with? He might as well have asked her to dive into a reckless ocean without even knowing how to swim. She leaned her shoulder against the wall for support, the cool clay caught on the threads of her shirt. “What does he eat?” She asked, attempting to sound more inquisitive than critical.

“Anything. Keep him away from frogs.”

“Frogs?”

The Mandalorian shrugged. _No frogs. Okay._ “See why this is important?” Mara said crossing her arms, “Does he need to be asleep by a certain hour?”

“He’ll sleep when you do.”

Raising an eyebrow at the notion, Mara decided not to question it, “He can understand me, can he talk?”

“No.”

“How old is he?”  
  
“Around fifty.”

Maybe the man who pledged to spend his entire life encased in metal to shroud himself in anonymity, and had a career in hunting beings down for money wasn’t as sane as Mara had thought. She stared down at the creature in the orb, wondering if she had possibly misunderstood. He may have had wrinkles, but he most definitely was an infant, and the Mandalorian even called him _a child_. “That—That’s very weird,” Mara blurted out, unsure what else she could possibly say.

“Some species age differently,” His statement was accompanied by a nonchalant shrug.

“That covers the basics, I suppose. Is there anything else I need to know?” Mara asked, starting to pick at the dry skin that was developing around her nails.

The Mandalorian didn’t say anything for a long moment—longer than she’d come to expect from him. Mara glanced up, his hands were fidgeting the slightest bit, tightening and loosening into fists as he thought through what to say next, “He’s got some abilities.”

Her attention piqued, “Abilities?”

“He can move things and heal wounds…with his mind,” The infant stared up at the Mandalorian with wide eyes, as if he had disclosed an ancient secret, “It’s not usually dangerous, but—”

“Like a Jedi?” Mara scoffed a little, having remembered Scoria’s stories of Jedi and how her fellow military officers spoke of their ruler who was rumored to have once been a part of the religious cult. She had always passed them off as legends—nothing more than rumors spread to lessen the pain of officers who had suffered from bruised egos caused by the hands of a ruthless leader.

The helmet jerked up as soon as she said the word, “You know about the Jedi?”

She sank against the wall, recognizing the sound of hope in his voice, and knowing she would not be able to deliver anything of substance. “I—Well, Scoria—my madam, she was…” Mara stuttered, she wasn’t sure how to bring up Scoria’s involvement in the Empire without inviting judgment from her present company. _Just rip off the medpatch._ “She was an Admiral under the Empire. There were a few stories about their leader, but I don’t know much…” She trailed off when he Mandalorian stiffened and backed away. Mara had never felt more threatened by him than she did in this moment. He wasn’t retreating, but rearing back; a serpent preparing to strike.

“You’re searching for an _Imperial_ _Admiral_?” He growled.

“No!” Mara took a bold step toward him, “No, she retired years before the Rebellion even started. She hasn’t had Imperial connections for easily fifteen years, and the Empire is gone. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters. No one _retires_ from the Empire!” The Mandalorian’s voice cut through the air in the room like a dagger.

Mara threw her hands up. Her entire plan was slipping out of her grasp over something as inconsequential as her madam’s past in a defeated tyrannical government—one she had sworn off for over a decade. The room began to shrink. The path to Hope was liquifying in front of her and dripping through her fingers while the possibility of being left on this planet with hardly enough credits to survive began solidified. She couldn’t keep her voice from raising an octave higher than usual, and panic stole all of the spaces from in between her words. She wouldn’t lose Hope again. She couldn’t. “No one turns a bounty into a foundling either, but here you are! I’ve _known_ bounty hunters, I know the code of the Guild. ‘All’s forgotten,’ right? You obviously didn’t forget! You’re not the only one who can dodge a bad system! She’s not a risk to you or your kid, and if she _was,_ your only job is to drop me off on Bespin—that’s it! You’ll be long gone before I even figure out where they’re keeping her.”

The Mandalorian seemed more like a droid again; still as a statue, all raised up and ready to fight regardless of what humanity he was slashing through. Mara willed him to believe her, willed him to at least understand that their agreement wasn’t detrimental to either of their causes—whatever his cause was. He didn’t move or breathe or say a single word for an excruciating amount of time and Mara couldn’t stop herself. She needed him to see her, she needed him to know what was at risk. She knew she sounded hysterical, but she _was_ hysterical, “I gain nothing from betraying you. My only motivation is bringing Scoria back so we have a reason to fight again, and so I don’t have to keep sleeping with an Overlord as a pathetic attempt to make them see Workers as living beings, and so I won’t wake up again to find out that someone I love is-is-is—” _Captured. Gone. Dead. Wiped from existence._

The words caught in Mara’s throat and grabbed ahold of her vocal cords, constricting with painful force. Air was starting to escape from her lungs in short bursts, and she realized she was pacing across the small room, scanning the walls and floor as if she’d find her bravery scattered about. Of course there was nothing to be found, but it didn’t matter because the Mandalorian crossed the room in what seemed like a single pace, planting himself in front of her before she could take another step. His helmet tilted down so that she was staring straight into her reflection in the tinted visor. Expecting this to be the moment the serpent struck, Mara prepared herself to put up a fight, her hand hovering over the blaster that was pressed against her hip. What parts of him weren’t covered in beskar? His neck seemed like the best place to aim. He was close enough that she was sure she wouldn’t miss. She just had to be quicker than he was.

Instead, though, a comlink was shoved into her hand, and he spoke through gritted teeth, “You are going to give me an update that proves he is safe every night I am gone. When I call, you respond. Immediately. If you do not, or if you do _anything_ that takes this child from me, there is not a single planet in this galaxy where I won’t find you.”


	4. Quinn Pru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence, mentions of abuse

_15 years before the Escape:_

The city was vibrating with beings staggering through the streets, and speeder bikes whizzing by. The view of the buildings from below was one Mars had only experienced a handful of times; usually when clients were able to pay enough to convince the Overlords to accept possibility the the Worker may not step back into the building again. The view of her balcony from below always came with risk. The fear still lived contentedly in Mars’ bones. She took a deep breath to steady her heart and keep her walking confidently next to her Madam. Even with Scoria’s permission and outright enthusiasms for her Workers to venture out into the city for leisure, Mars struggled with stepping foot outside of the Brothel’s threshold.

Scoria sauntered into a cantina, her dark eyes sweeping across the crowded room like she was looking for familiar faces. The bartender locked onto the Madam and nodded his greeting, shaking a glowing blue liquid and pouring it into two glasses. Scoria leaned against the bar, and Mars mimicked her, shooting her a questioning glance. “What type of training is this? Believe it or not, I know how to drink,” Mara said with a smile.

The bartender slid the two glasses of spotchka over to the women. Scoria took a deep sip, and nodded in the direction of a group of men. They were loud, a little older than Scoria. They howled curses at each other and hungrily eyed disinterested women as they walked by. These were the types of men who Mars had come to know well. They were they types of men who would lose their hearing once a woman began to speak. “Pick one. The man you choose will be your client for the night,” Scoria commanded firmly, speaking as she did when she was giving instruction on the practices of firing off weapons, with grave seriousness.

Mars was suddenly made of glass. She knew that if she tapped against her skin it would crack. She’d be able to run her fingertips over the fissures and press lightly, watching them splinter across her body until she shattered. But Mars didn’t break, she didn’t shatter, she just stood and turned to the group of men. Scoria had planted seeds of Hope that she cultivated and nurtured, but here, Mars knew, was the animal that would dig them up and tear them out of the freshly foraged dirt. Scoria was still a Madam. She still had power. And that meant, she had the ability to take all that freedom away.

Scoria had promised choice. And here she was, giving Mars a choice. _Pick one. Pick one. Pick…_

Mars’ feet stopped just before she reached the group, they had turned their hungry eyes on her, smiling and licking their lips as she got closer; beasts preparing to devour their next meal. Her mouth opened to speak, but she found her legs were taking her back to the Madam, back to the bar. Scoria raised an eyebrow. “What’s the problem, Mars?” She asked

“I don’t want to pick one.”

Scoria narrowed her eyes, “You don’t _want_ to.”

Mars shrugged, took a sip of spotchka and settled into the stool. The blue liquid was sweet and she found herself gulping it down. Scoria sighed, her face relaxing into a wide smile that creased her eyes, “Oh, thank the _Force,_ Mars! I was worried you were going to actually bring one of those men back here!”

It felt cruel; this type of training—whatever the Madam claimed it to be. Mars felt like a pawn in a game she had never agreed to play. “Alright, what’s your point?”

“Choose what _you_ need, Mars. Even when it isn’t offered to you. Choose it, and if you must, fight for it.”

—

The first day on Dantooine had Mara drenched in sweat and uncertainty. The child may not have cried or thrown temper tantrums or been a picky eater, but he did seem to have a vendetta against her. If Mara hadn’t known any better, she’d think he was purposefully unleashing karmic punishment for her argument with his caretaker and a joke about his dedication to the infant. There was moment where she had been searching for new clothes, and tore her eyes away from the creature for a split second to hold a tunic up against her chest. When she turned to face the child, she found his metal pod humming along beside her to be completely empty. She dug through the blankets to ensure he was not merely hiding in plain sight, but there was nothing. He was gone.

Hardened clay walls might as well have tumbled in on her in that moment, as she heard the Mandalorian’s words clear as day, warning her that he’d find her if she lost the child. _What happens if he loses me, Mando?!_ Darkness began to flood her vision, and her entire body felt uncharacteristically heavy as she quickly ducked through dusky racks of fabric and boots and weaved around customers who looked at her as if she were crazy. Maybe she was crazy. She tried to call out to the kid a few times, but found herself feeling foolish for trying to call for someone when she had no idea what their name was. _Kid? Child?_ Everyone in the tiny shop watched as she straightened up and put her hand on her forehead, trying to ignore the way her heart beat throughout her entire body.

“Has-Has anyone seen a green baby? He has big ears. You can’t miss him,” Mara breathlessly asked the room, realizing that multiple pairs of eyes might help her.

One of the patrons, a bright green Rodian with strange black eyes and a snout that looked as though it was attempting to keep from pulling back into a smile, pointed just behind her. She whirled around, finding the child blinking up at her and tilting his head as if he had no idea what the uproar had been about. Heat rose to Mara’s face as she huffed out a breath of air. With hands still trembling from fear that had not worn off just yet, she slammed the appropriate amount of credits onto the counter for the clerk, and stormed out of the store, new clothes latched under her arm, and the child’s orb gripped tight in her grasp.

“I looked like a fool in there! Cut me some slack, I’m new to this,” She whispered through clenched teeth. A squeaking giggle escaped from his little body.

The moment her heart returned to its regular pace and she slid into clothes that didn’t constantly threaten to slide down her shoulders or get caught in her quick stride, Mara decided to venture back into he bazaar to gather rations. She decided to leave behind the orb, and carry the child as an attempt to have a little more control over him. She settled for allowing him to piggyback on her shoulders, so that she could have free hands to carry her items.

The food on this planet was much different than what she had been used to in the brothel. Dried meats hung in strips from the food cart, and it was filled with vibrantly covered vegetables and spices and cheeses. Her hands dragged over a few fruits and she lifted a bright red apple to smell it. It was fragrant with sweetness and she took a deep breath to experience it a little longer. “Hey!” A harsh voice yelled, “We don’t do samples here! You eat it, you buy it!”

Mara blinked, confused, at the human man who was jabbing a finger in her direction, “I’m sorry? I wasn’t-”

And then crumbs sprinkled down in front of her face. The child was chomping on one of the hanging slices of meat, and it was almost entirely gone. Mara pulled what was left down, and put it into her pile of purchases, apologizing under her breath the whole time.

Even while she paid, the seller looked at her with angry eyes, grumbling as she scurried to pile everything into a cloth bag before the child decided to snack on more of his inventory. _If Viv could see you now._ She snickered to herself at the thought. Viv was always good with children. When the Child’s Tower was in full operation, during the days before and after Scoria, he would gather the kids to tell them fantastic stories and give them prompts of plays to act out in front of each other. The Overlords allowed it. They had no use of the children unless they were brainwashing them with a harsh curriculum that catered directly toward conditioning workers who knew how to entertain and hold a conversation with notable clients, or maintaining the chores of the Brothel as a whole. While Mara had grown accustomed to infiltrating the trust of Overlords, Viv’s little bits of rebellion were in his stories and plays. They always featured a subtle trademark of a Worker’s triumph, or adventures that lead to the downfall of darkness that tried to overpower light. Mara loved watching young eyes ignite from the imagination that Viv was able to stoke out of them.

Mara walked through the bazaar, with the kid balanced on her shoulder, hoping maybe a little overstimulation would tire him out for the night. It wasn’t until she had bought all of the rations she needed for the following days and wandered through every store in the bazaar, that the realization of how fruitless it’d seem to attempt to tire out a child who spent his days traveling alongside a Mandalorian. To put it frankly, it was a nightmare. The child disobeyed her at every turn; whether it was knocking things off of shelves in stores, or running and hiding from her whenever she looked away. Giving up on the day entirely, Mara’s legs brought her out passed the bazaar, and into the vast prairie as the sun began to set. All hills and waist hight grass and gigantic trees that reached up into the sky, the planet felt the same as it did when she had seen it from above just the day before. A creek leisurely curved through the land, and Mara sat herself down in front of it to watch it bubble and let the child splash around. Peace had begun evaporate out of the streaming waters and fill the air.

“Mara,” the comlink scratched, she felt its vibrations buzz against her hip. _So much for peace._

The child’s ears lifted up excitedly at the sound of the familiar voice. She pressed the transmitter and held it out to be held by two small hands, he babbled into the speaker. Mara pulled it back to her mouth, “Do you hear your foundling? He’s telling you that he hates me.”

“He’s safe, though. No issues?”

Mara shifted her eyes from the pink sky to the child; he was half way through swallowing a frog whole. “Was there a thing you said about frogs?” She asked, watching webbed feet fall effortlessly into the infant’s mouth.

“Did he eat one?” The comlink asked.

Mara bit her lip, wondering if she should tell the truth. The child returned to splashing his hands in the water. It didn’t seem like he was going to be ill, or like the frog had triggered some kind of reaction in him that would turn him into any more of a monster than he had been the entire day. “Well, you see—” Mara began.

His voice cut her off, “Right. He’ll eat them until he’s sick. Keep an eye on it. I’ll check back in tomorrow.”

She shut her eyes and fell into the grass. It prickled at her back as she sank into it, rolling onto her side. The child was silhouetted by the enormous sky, his tiny body bouncing as he played. A smile crept across her face. _He’s cute for a little monster_.

The following days, Mara was able to fall into step with her duties with the child. By the third day, she could easily predict his movements and would scoop him into her arms before his feet met the ground when he climbed out of his pod. The villagers had begun to look familiar as she walked the streets when the walls of her room became to tedious to look at. The grocer who had yelled at her only two days prior had even nodded in direction as a friendly greeting this morning. When the sky would begin changing color, the Mandalorian’s voice would scratch over the comlink, and Mara, unwilling to endure the anger she had seen from him when they spoke of the Empire, remained as consistent as she could.

The Freedom of Dantooine was turning her into an explorer. The child had become fond of piggybacking on her shoulders as they trekked through the rocky hills and ate fruit in the canopies of trees. She’d even let him play with a few of the human boys who’s company had become a regular occurrence during their walks because of their fascination with the small green creature with large ears. Mara watched them kick a ball around, tightening her gaze on them when it seemed like the boys’ size and energy would lead to rough-housing that wouldleave the child with a bruise or injury she’d have to explain to the Mandalorian. They were always gentle and kind, though, and Mara watched their games with a smile across her face, almost forgetting about the hole in her chest and the dusty room where she used to tuck herself away.

One of the boys, harnessing a newfound bravado, jumped on Mara’s back as his victory in the game was determined. She was laughing and didn’t even care when his hand was caught against her headband, and pulled it down by her neck—playfulness had seeped into her as well and she lifted to her feet to chase him down. When the sweet, grass-scented air filled their lungs, and when the two boys and the child had finally worn themselves out, they returned to the bazaar soaked in the last remnants of laughter.

The boys waved their goodbyes as they stumbled into a small hut where an older woman was waiting for them. Mara continued padding along the bazaar, child in her hands. Not yet ready to return to the clay walls of her room, she stopped off to grab a few candies for the child to chew on as a treat. “Maybe this’ll finally make you like me,” Mara quipped.

Big brown eyes blinked up at her, and the child tilted his head. “Don’t give me that—” The sentence caught in Mara’s mouth as a glimpse of a hooded figure caught her eye.

It was gliding through the crowd, far enough away that it avoided suspicion, but it was still falling into step beside her with a little too much regularity. There were occasions when brothel’s hired hunters to recapture Workers who escape, and automatically, Mara reached up to find her headband was still dangling around her neck. She pulled it haphazardly over her barely-healed scar, and changed her course. The figure followed suit, and once it did, the bright red door of a Holding House emerged like a harrowing premonition of the conclusion to this journey. _It’s one hunter. You can take down one hunter_.

The bazaar still beat and drummed around her as if there wasn’t a threat hiding in its rhythm. Mara charged forward with hurried steps, her head down, and her eyes up, scanning the area. Returning to the room wasn’t an option. Oxygen escaping her lungs in large waves, she weaved through the crowd, ducking behind merchants and artisans who were setting up their displays. The figure was there. She held the child closer to her chest and fell into step between two large human men who were carrying a slab of wood that she could hide herself behind.

They entered an industrial shop that Mara hadn’t been in before, large pipes, supplies, and tools hung from the ceiling, were mounted to the walls, and were piled into bins that were scattered around the space in organized chaos. There was a small side door crammed back in the corner, and she slammed her shoulder into it. Light burst through, and Mara jogged straight into it. The figure was there; following just close enough behind that all of her paranoia was validated.

Her heart resounded loudly in her ears. The impending fight would be easier with a blaster—the blaster she left sitting on the bed because she had grown too confident in the tranquility of the bazaar. Mara cursed herself. She veered into an empty alley, quickly setting the child on the ground as she pressed her back against the wall. Her hunter wasn’t far behind, the moment they stepped into the shadows, Mara shot her foot out and kicked as hard as she could. The impact forced her backward.

The figure hit the wall, their hood falling down around their shoulders to reveal them to be a Twi’lek with focused hazel eyes and skin that was so pale and glowing it shined like silver. The hunter, impossibly quick, returned her blow, grabbing Mara’s arm and twisting it behind her back. Using the wall for support, Mara shifted her weight backwards, letting her feet run up the clay side of the building and flip herself over her attacker. They both dropped to the ground and dust erupted around them.

“I’m getting too old for this,” The Twi’lek groaned, wincing in pain to reveal sharp canines.

“You can tell whoever sent you that they can send a thousand more of their men after me, but I won’t end up in a Holding House,” Mara growled, standing up tall to look them in the eye.

The Twi’lek was slim, but muscular. Beauty flowed through a soft, sculpted face, and alluringly offset by sharp teeth, angled cheekbones, and a forehead that was covered by a golden head piece. “I am neither _man_ nor _woman_ ,” The Twi’lek said in a melodic voice, picking themself off of the ground, “I am _Quinn Pru_. No one has sent me. I noticed you at the bazaar yesterday.”

They tapped on their temple, and Mara’s hand flew up to her own. She felt grossly vulnerable, and angry at them for knowing something about her that she had not willingly given. The gesture was one Quinn obviously had become familiar with. They slid the golden head piece down to reveal the remnants of their own scar, perfect skin with a mark of pale white, a ghost of where the Opt-Blocker had been, “I had noticed your headband…I figured you might be one of us. When I saw your wound, I—,” They trailed off, looking down at the child who was grabbing at Mara’s shin. 

“‘One of us,’” Mara repeated. Her tongue felt dry, double its size, and her heart returned to beating heavy through her whole body, “I haven’t seen any Workers here.”

Quinn shook their head, “We are no longer Workers,” they honed in on the way Mara’s eyes widened, “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”

In a daze, Mara followed the Twi’lek into a teahouse that was decorated in the eclectic, neutral tones that mimicked the style of the rest of the stores in the bazaar. Quinn moved with such grace and beauty that they swirled through the patrons of the crowded shop with delicate ease. They raised two fingers to the clerk, who they obviously knew well. The moment Mara settled into a corner seat with the kid, two cups of tea and a piece of bread and jam were dropped onto the table. Quinn slid the plate over to be ravenously grabbed by the child’s small hands. “What’s your name?” Quinn asked, blowing across their cup before putting their lips to the rim.

“Call me Mara,” she stated, completely uninterested in the floral scent that hung in the steam from her cup of tea, “Are there more runaways here? Where are they?”

Quinn chuckled, “I want to hear your story first. Where were you from?”

“Keyorin,” She offered. Quinn made no effort to hide their grimace. Mara felt a surge of protectiveness over her shapeshifting city. “A Mandalorian helped me escape, and I agreed to watch his— _this_ —child in exchange for passage to Bespin.”

“Bespin, huh?” Quinn asked, tilting their jaw down, setting the cup gently on the table.

Mara took a deep breath to soothe the ache that was slowly beginning to spread through her bones, “I’m going to Cloud City.”

Studying her with narrow eyes, Quinn pursed their lips. “What are you to find in Cloud City?”

The air drained out of the space around the trio. Quinn had shifted from Hunter to Worker to something else entirely; something that Mara could not name in the span of only a few moments. What risk could they possibly pose to Mara’s journey? The question bounced around on the tabletop, radically jumping from a cynical inquiry of the risk they posed to a ridiculous hypothetical that shined a light on her own paranoia. Quinn intertwined their long silver fingers together, “Bespin has become a hub for the Prostitution Syndicates and the Traffickers they’ve aligned themselves with…”

Mara hid herself in the cup of tea as Quinn continued, “But based on your enthusiasm to go and your hesitation to tell me why, I am confident that you already knew that.”

Heat rose to her cheeks. If the statement had come out of Destrie’s mouth, it would have been pedantic, cold. However Quinn had spoke with a furrowed brow, and a voice that was coated in kindness. Of course she hadn’t _known_ what they spoke of, though she figured as much. Scoria’s fear of the place, and her confidence that it would be where she’d die seemed to be strongly rooted in reality. _I’ll face my ending in that damned city in the clouds._ The Ache continued. The path forward seemed more futile and unwise than ever. Mara knew she was desperately following mere glimpses of Hope; even after it had proven time and time again to be an inconsistent guide at best.

“I’m trying to find the Madam that was taken from us,” Mara whispered.

Quinn studied Mara, “The Madam who trained you in combat, no doubt?”

She nodded once, and twirled the tea cup around in her fingers, “She trained our whole brothel, but the Overlords thought she was ‘too radical.’” Mara scrunched her nose in annoyance at the label that Destrie had become all too comfortable throwing around.

“How long ago?”

“A little over three months.”

The saddest and most infuriating kind of sympathy washed across Quinn’s face. Mara might as well have transformed into a child again—a child who believed she would be rescued from the belly of a dark smuggler’s ship, a child who thought her friend was gallivanting across Canto Bight and would surely return, a child who believed a Madam who had been captured three months prior was still alive. “I know what you’re thinking, and you might be right. Scoria’s probably dead, but at least, if I go, I have a chance find real answers,” Mara spouted out in her defense.

“Scoria Karaay was your Madam,” Quinn straightened, their hazel eyes lit up from recognition-or was it fear?

A floodgate of curiosity and questions caved in on itself. Mara leaned forward, nearly knocking over her tea as she did, “How do you know her? Have you heard something? What do you—”

Quinn quickly tapped the table with their silver hand, stood up, and motioned for her to follow, “Come with me. I can answer your questions, but there is something that I think you should see.”

The shop blurred as Mara scooped up the child, not even worrying about the breadcrumb mess he had left behind. She swept away after the silver Twi’lek with a musical voice. Foolish, persistent Hope bloomed with vengeance.

Quinn nodded at the tea clerk as they passed, confidently sauntering behind the counter and ducking under the threshold that Mara had assumed lead to a kitchen. Hesitantly, she followed, finding her initial assumption to have been accurate. A few near-human cooks had their heads down as they frantically called out orders to each other and stirred vegetables that sizzled so loudly their voices were almost drowned out. Quinn had ducked under another threshold, hidden in plain sight from being covered by discarded, ragged cloth and netting. A narrow, stone staircase descended below the kitchen. Mara exchanged a look with the child before she willingly strode into the darkness.


	5. Alwyn's Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Grief

_2 Months Before the Escape:_

“Cynthia, leave Gavrish alone,” Viv called out, waving a hand—long fingers ordained with a silver rings and golden nails—in the direction of a young Twi’lek girl who had been rough housing with a human boy who was wincing and grimacing away from her teasing, “Or I’ll have to separate you both!”

Over a dozen children, just old enough to handle responsibility, were garnished with tired eyes from a day of chores that consisted of cleaning rooms, washing dishes, and cooking meals. Mars relived her enslaved childhood every time she ventured into the Child’s Tower to watch Viv brighten the halls of the wing. The Overlords had refurbished the Tower upon their re-arrival; flooding what had been Scoria’s training facilities with youth that would maintain the domestic duties of the brothel, and force them to absorb a cruel conditioning curriculum to prepare them for the day that they were old enough to sleep in the rooms they had once cleaned. Mars had begged Destrie to re-think the practice before they reinstated it, but of course, there were agreements made with slave smugglers that were too precious to break. _“We’d lose credits, Mars.”_ She was sure that the next time she heard that justification, the Overlord would leave her room with a broken nose.

Wide eyes and toothy smiles looked up at Viv as he settled himself onto a sofa in the common area. It was entirely glass, the moon and city lights leaked onto the velvet and the pillows that were messily thrown and draped around the room. “You’re all pretty new here, huh? So I suppose that means you’ve never heard the story of the Alwyn and her Dragon?” Viv said in a sing-song voice that he adapted whenever he told these kinds of stories.

There was a chorus of No’s and shaking heads. Mars leaned against the wall with a few other Workers who had come to enjoy watching Viv in his element—all eyes on him and every being in the room clinging to each word that he said. Scoria had been dragged out of the brothel weeks before, but her absence hollowed out the building—it was still echoing through the halls. Elisia sighed wistfully, “You know this was always my favorite story of his,” she whispered.

Mars shot the Twi’lek a quick glance. Sometimes she had forgotten how much time had passed. How Viv had been telling these stories since the day the smugglers dragged him through the double doors and into the Tower. “Mine too,” she hummed sadly, her head resting against the wall.

“Well, no one will tell you this, but there’s a planet far passed the Outer Rim that is completely uninhabited. But it’s _beautiful._ It’s filled with gigantic mountains and lush forests and trees that are so tall that they get lost in the clouds,” Viv began, pointing out the windows and spreading the scene across the room with a simple gesture.

“If it’s so beautiful, why doesn’t anyone live there?” A human girl with an explosion of hair that fell down her shoulders blurted out. The end of her sentence came out as a whisper as she realized all eyes were on her. Shyness stole her voice.

Viv leaned against his elbow, throwing a reassuring smile at her, “No one ever thought to look! Until one explorer did. He had gotten lost on his journey and thought the tiny blue and green planet would be a good place to gather his bearings. He was overwhelmed with the beauty he saw! He decided to stay; making maps, documenting all of the new wildlife and plants he discovered, trying to find any sign of sentient life. On his third day, though, he heard something, it was a sound unlike anything he’d ever experienced, a roar that shook the mountains and made the trees bow down in fear…” He paused, letting suspense swim through the children.

“The explorer was a brave man though, and decided to find the source. He scrambled through the bushes, tripping over stones, until he found a clearing. The forest opened up to reveal a waterfall that it had been hiding from him, and for a moment, he thought its rushing waters were the cause of the sound. Until he saw the dragon. It was curled up and sleeping, but he could tell it was easily twenty feet high, longer than his ship, and bright shades of red and gold. He had never been more terrified. But then he saw _her_ and all of his fears faded away. She was catching fish in the shallow waters where the waterfall’s wake couldn’t reach; and she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her hair fell by her shoulders like water, her legs were long and slender, and her face looked as though the Gods themselves had carved it from stone. The explorer was in love immediately. He had to have her.”

Viv leaned back, letting a few of the children grimace and groan loudly as they so often do at the notion of romance. “But she was guarded by a sleeping _dragon!_ What was he supposed to do? So, as quietly as he could, he approached the woman, watching every step he took so as not to wake the beast. When she saw him, she was frightened at first. He clasped his hand over her mouth to keep her fright from waking the dragon, and as he pulled her away, into the woods, far from the dragon’s reach, he reassured her that she was safe now. ‘Safe? I was _safe_ before!’ She said to him.”

“This confused the explorer. He had expected her to be grateful for his bravery. He had just snuck her away from a _dragon_ after all! But she was angry at him. ‘I am Alwyn, and that is _my_ dragon,’ she yelled. The explorer apologized to her profusely for his misunderstanding, and, having been the first man she’d ever met, Alwyn allowed her curiosity of him to replace her anger. She introduced him to the dragon, who was friendly and gently in nature. The explorer was even able to place his hand upon its shoulder and feel the power that lay just under its scales.”

The description of the dragon was always the moment when Viv’s eyes would glaze over. When he talked of its power, of its enormity, he held his hands out as if the beast was in front of him and he was staring it in the eye. “The explorer spent hours telling Alwyn and her dragon of his discoveries, of his triumphs, of the adventures that had almost lead to his death, but how he always cunningly escaped. With every story Alwyn’s beautiful eyes widened with wonder, and with every story he fell in love with her more. When the moon rose that night, and the dragon was asleep, the explorer couldn’t take it anymore. He had to tell Alwyn that he wanted her to be his. He knew she’d say yes.”

“But when he asked her to board his ship and fly off with him at dawn, she remarked how it surely wouldn’t be able to hold her dragon, and how she couldn’t bear to leave her forest. The explorer was shocked. Why would she want to bring her dragon and stay in isolation when she could have him? ‘I am happy,’ she said to him. ‘You would be happier with me!’ The explorer proclaimed, he grabbed her by the wrist. He foolishly believed that she would love him as soon as the planet was far off in the distance. Alwyn was a woman of great determination, though. She knew what she wanted. When the explorer had been doting over her hair and her face and her skin, he had missed how her hands moved with deliberate intent, how she stroked the dragon while she spoke, how she looked at the mountains as if they were mere obstacles for her to climb.”

That had always been the part of the story that made Mars’s heart sing, but now it laid silent, unable to hum a note. Viv stood, “Their struggle was loud enough to stir the dragon; who awoke to find its only friend being dragged away by a man who’s face was puffed out and red from anger. He was too blinded by his rage to realize the beast was awake. Once he felt the glowing eyes on him, though, the explorer began to run, dragging Alwyn behind him. He simply could not let her go, no matter how hard she fought him, he _knew_ she’d love him back. The planet was no place to hide such a beautiful woman. The dragon was too fast though. It flew to the sky and dropped down on his ship, blocking his entrance. The explorer, now only plagued by the desire to survive, threw Alwyn away, and raised his blaster to the beast! Firing off fatal rounds!”

There were a few small gasps from the children, and Viv reveled in it. He leaned forward, like he was about to tell them all a secret, and his audience mimicked him. “The dragon roared in pain,and Alwyn sobbed as she watched her companion become riddled with glowing holes where the blaster hit it. She begged the explorer to stop, trying to pry the blaster from him. But just as she did, her dragon’s jaws came down around the explorer. Gigantic teeth bit into him and swallowed him _whole!_ ”

The kids all made sounds of disgust mixed with bits of laughter. Viv nodded along, scrunching up his nose. “What happened to the dragon?” Gavrish asked, his head leaned against Cynthia’s shoulder now.

“Well, it seemed the dragon, in all its power and glory, couldn’t stand against the rain of blaster fire. Just as it swallowed the explorer, it fell to the ground. Alwyn stole to its side, holding its head in her hands as she cried out for a miracle.”

The room fell eerily silent. “Her heart broke, but the dragon was happy, you see? It got to spend its last moments in the arms of someone it loved, and died to protect. Alwyn gave her dragon a proper burial, and cremated it where it fell. She mourned the loss of the beast for days, which turned into months. But she wasn’t the type to stand idly by as sadness engulfed her. She used the explorers ship to see more of her planet than she’d ever been able to see. Alwyn even zipped through the galaxy, experiencing all it had to give her.”

This was always the moment when the audience averted their gaze. Sometimes envy made its way into the room, and tonight was one of those nights. Viv didn’t look away, though, until his friendly brown eyes met Mars’s for a single moment, “But one day her planet called her back. And Alwyn answered. She returned to the scarred patch of land where her old friend had laid to rest, but there was a glint of light that caught her eye—buried just under the surface of ash. Alwyn dug her hands into the soft ground, and pulled out a large, impossibly beautiful, golden egg.”

—

The twisting stairs dropped so far below the seemingly nondescript teashop that the air cooled the farther down they went. Cob webs and dust filled the air. The child, after sniffling a few times because of the fine particles that floated around them, sneezed. Even Mara found herself holding her breathe to keep her nose clear. Mara was beginning to question her decision-making skills, the farther she followed the Twi’lek. Quinn smirked up at her as soon as they reached their destination; a wooden door with a single, perfectly proportioned triangle carved into the center. She was sure she had just walked her and the child right into a trap, when Quinn pushed the door open and warm light fill the stairwell.

Bright light reflected across the Twi’lek’s silver skin. How can skin _glow_? Even the child responded to its luster by humming. The chatter of countless voices pulled them both away from Quinn’s beauty, and a space opened up in front of them that Mara never believed existed. Dozens of beings buzzed and laughed and talked to one another, all with fresh or healed wounds on their temples. Some beings were huddled together playing a game that Mara had never seen before, others were cleaning up and cooking in a make-shift kitchen in the back corner, metal bay doors were open to reveal a few women sitting on bunks that were lined across the space. An entirely separate room was encased in glass that seemed too sleek for the setting. A bruiting Bothan and a nurse droid were behind the panes, twisting an Opt-Blocker out of the temple of a pregnant Twi’lek who was holding back tears.

The small community intertwined gracefully within the small space, like everyone knew exactly what to do at all times. Quinn’s voice pulled Mara’s attention away from whatever was growing with exponential vigor in her chest, “They’ll stop here for a few days to get back on their feet, take out their opt-blockers, rest, sometimes we continue their training. Then we arrange passage for them somewhere else.”

Quinn took the lead again, weaving effortlessly through the various activities, only stopping to face Mara again when they reached the only corner of the giant refuge that wasn’t occupied. “This is—I don’t even have words…” Mara confessed as an attempt to reinvigorate the conversation they had in the teahouse, but she found herself unable to comb through her racing mind to string together a sentence. “How do you know Scoria?”

“This Refuge is just one of many,” Quinn explained, leaning back against the wall and crossing their arms, “Ever since the Collective formed, we’ve been working with them to help runaways stay that way. I know _of_ Scoria because of this, but I never had the honor of meeting her.”

“The Collective?” Mara blinked at them cluelessly.

“Scoria was one of the first members. She and several Madams formed a coalition when they realized there was no government that would take on the Traffickers or the Syndicates. It grew until it became an entire movement. We thought it had been working. Hell, when the New Republic came to power, we thought they were on our side,” Quinn sighed, clearly distressed, “And they were. For a while the refuges were null and void. There’s been a shift recently, though. The Syndicates came back stronger than before. We can’t figure out what is going wrong, but it’s complete chaos out there. I mean, I had no idea Scoria had even been taken.”

The room was spinning. Scoria, _her_ Scoria, had landed her place in the Brothel because of her Imperial Power, not because she had actually been part of a covert organization that’s intent was to infiltrate and dissolve the Syndicates and Overlords…right? “I knew Scoria tried to make things different—better, but this sounds like an all out revolution,” Mara said, her voice low, she was surprised she still knew how to use it.

“Mara, it _is_ a revolution,” Quinn looked her in the eye now, their tone darkened, “It’s a revolution that’s been fought for centuries, under every leader and every government. It has called upon many generations. Now, it calls us.”

Was she still breathing? Did air even exist in this place? Mara fought to keep herself from retreating into panic. If Scoria had been part of a revolution against the Syndicates, and if the Overlord’s had found that out, then the chances of her survival were— _No. Don’t lose it yet._

“I just wanted to bring Scoria back to to Keyorin to give the Workers a reason to fight back…this is so much bigger than—”

Quinn tilted their head, “Scoria or no Scoria, there are always reasons to fight back.”

“Is there a way to find out if she’s still alive?” Mara couldn’t hold in the question any longer.

The Twi’lek stroked their lekku and chewed on the inside of their lip, pondering Mara’s question, “There might be. We have a man on the inside. He’s been in the Syndicates for years and he usually tells us when members of the Collective are being investigated…which is why I am becoming increasingly concerned by Scoria’s disappearance, and how I had not heard of it.”

Mara nodded rapidly. She could find Scoria, she could find answers, and she could find a way to get her Brothel out of the clutches of the Overlords. It was so close, her fingers were grazing the possibilities. The Twi’lek ran a finger over their jaw as they spoke, “We have a smuggler who gives us any messages from the spy. He comes weekly. We’re expecting him in a few days, he’ll be able to get any information we need.”

The Bothan who had been in the middle of an opt-blocker extraction only minutes ago interrupted Mara's train of thought, “I suppose there’s no chance of getting our hands on more bacta, is there?”

“Ah, I’m glad you came over. Mara, this is Kai; our resident medic. Kai, this is our friend Mara and her little one.” Quinn noted. The baby’s eyes locked onto the large being.

More beast than humanoid, Kai was covered head to toe in long, coarse fur and flashed sharp white canines that would have been intimidating if they hadn’t been offset by kind golden eyes. His clawed hand swept the longer hair on the top of his head behind his large, narrow ears. He studied her for a moment before reaching out and sliding her headband down around her neck. Mara flinched away from the uninvited touch, he clicked his tongue, “Looks like you had quite the go.”

Before Mara could say anything, furred hands gripped her face, professionally twisting her temple toward him so he could have a closer look at the cauterized wound. It wasn’t close to healing over, ignoring the painful throbbing had become part of a daily routine.

“I didn’t have a mirror…” She said, still a little dazed by all of the knowledge she had stumbled across in such a short amount of time. “By the time I had help, the damage was already done.”

“Should’ve used bacta. Way more discreet if you run into syndicate hired smugglers or bounty hunters. Which is why, Quinn…”

“I hear you, Kai,” they raised a hand as an act to silence the doctor, “I’ll put out a transmission.”

Kai seemed satisfied enough with that answer and strode back into his glass room to speak to the Twi’lek. Quinn returned their gaze, and stroked the too-large ears of the baby in Mara’s hands, “How long will you be on Dantooine?”

“The Mandalorian said two weeks,” Mara answered, “But I’ll do whatever it takes to find her—or answers…”

A dazzling smile lit up Quinn’s face, “You should consider staying here while you’re waiting for him to return. You’ll be safe, and we could use all the help we can get…plus some of these runaways could use a few self defense tips.”

“Yes!” Mara couldn’t stop the excitement from drowning her words, “But I can’t stay here. I worry what the Mandalorian would do if he returned to the room to find it had been empty for days.”

Quinn chuckled, shaking their head, “What is a Mandalorian doing with a child, anyway? They’re not known for being very _paternal_.”

Mara scoffed, the child looked up at her now, “I haven’t the slightest clue. He can be kind, though…for the most part,” she shuttered at the memory of her eyes reflected in the tinted visor of his helmet and a threat sharply cutting through his modulator.

Quinn escorted Mara throughout the entire refuge, introducing her to beings who had volunteered themselves to help out with cooking, cleaning, and keeping the runaways safe. It had been surprising to Mara how few of them had been Workers. Most were members of the community that Quinn had grown to trust and who felt compelled to help them when the Syndicates started to scramble back into power. The Twi’lek seemed very caught up in how it had happened, their forehead creased and their eyes glazed over every time they were reminded of it, which was frequent to say the least.

Mara was curious about Quinn, they carried themself with grace and confidence—a common trait among the Twi’lek’s that she used to be envious of as a child. Their leadership among those who worked in the Refuge was unlike anything she had ever seen. While Scoria demanded respect and attention, Quinn would sweep through the space with quiet dignity. They didn’t strike intimidation in the eyes of those who were in their presence, but there was a kindness and assuredness in how they spoke that put everyone at ease. She wanted desperately to know their story, how they ended up on Dantooine. Any moment she found the chance to ask, however, they’d claimed it was a story for another time—an answer Mara had recognized as being from someone who was not quite ready to give that part of away yet.

After going through the motions of Mara’s role in the refuge for the several days that would follow, Quinn and Mara were leaning against the stone counter in the kitchen. They shuffled through a conservator, heaving out a large jug, poured a cup of blue gray liquid and looked at Mara, asking permission—which she granted, and finally, they handed it to the eager child to sip on. “Have you trained anyone in self-defense before?” Quinn asked, their eyes still locked on the kid.

“No,” Mara confessed, “But I know I can do this—”

“Mara, come in,” A raspy voice erupted out of the comlink, and Mara suddenly felt embarrassed, like a caretaker was checking in on her. _He is a caretaker checking in on his kid._ The child completely disregarded the glass of blue milk at the sound of his Mandalorian, but Mara swiftly kept it from falling onto the counter top. A few drops splattered onto her wrist.

Quinn smiled reassuringly and ducked away to give her some privacy. The windowless refuge had allowed time to slip by unnoticed, Mara suspected the sky above was changing colors now. She handed the comlink to the child, holding down the button so that the Mandalorian could hear him coo into the speaker. “It’s loud,” The comlink noted.

Mara took the speaker back, and big brown eyes narrowed at her, “Sorry,” she whispered to the child. Should he know the truth? What’s the worst that can happen? _He questions your intentions, comes back, and kills you because he thinks you put his foundling at risk._ _“_ It’s loud because I’m in the bazaar.” _Bits of truth._

She held her breath, praying that he’d believe her. The child watched her closely, and Mara shrugged at him. The Mandalorian claimed he could understand her, and it was in moments like this, when she was sure his brown eyes were locked onto her with judgement, that she believed that there may have been more truth to that claim than she had thought.

The comlink scratched a little, “Are you headed back soon? It’s getting late.”

“He’s okay. He’s with me,” Mara said, hoping to keep the conversation away from the lie she’d have to maintain, “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

Mara scoffed into the speaker. “What’s that sound? Are you shaking from fear? You can’t fool me, I know the sound of rattling beskar!”

He sighed, “Things are heating up here. I may not be able to get in touch for the next few days, but our deal remains. If you don’t answer when I _do_ call—”

Quinn’s head snapped up at the sound of the Mandalorian’s tone harshening, and Mara interrupted him before he could finish the threat. “ _There is not a single planet in this galaxy where I won’t find you,_ ” she retorted, badly mimicking his stoic rasp, “You made that clear. I’ll talk to you later.”

The Twi’lek soared by her side as Mara shoved the comlink in her pocket. “He doesn’t sound ‘kind.’” They noted.

The child gulped down the last of his blue milk and his eyes were beginning to look heavy. Mara smiled half-heartedly, “Not when it comes to this child, that’s for sure. He’s got a quarrel against the Empire, so when he found out I was searching for an Imperial Admiral…well, you know how men are.”

Quinn nodded solemnly, “They are very good at ridding themselves of burdens; real or perceived. I hope for your sake he proves that wrong.”

Mara sighed staring at the exhausted child, “I can put up a pretty good fight. I better get this one back to get some sleep.”

“Be here at dawn. We start early,” Quinn said with a smile that nearly knocked Mara back a few steps.

Dawn couldn’t come soon enough. The moment the changing sky was visible again and her head hit the pillow, Mara desperately wished she hadn’t stepped foot out of the tea shop in the middle of the bazaar.

The Empty was hard to ignore when the silence of the clay walls was Mara’s only company. The child was fast asleep beside her now, his little body raising and falling with each breath he took. It’d be peaceful. And she’d thought she’d welcome it after a day of heart racing adrenaline from holding Hope in her hands again. But then the Empty swallowed everything whole. It made its home in her chest and even now, when everything in the galaxy told her to be happy, she could only think of the Empty; the endless pit of the thing. How it swallowed. How it reminded her that she’d never see friendly brown eyes again. She fought desperately hard to not retreat into the dark room; that dusty window didn’t feel like comfort anymore.

Viv would have loved the refuge; it was a beacon of good. A tiny bit of light in a galaxy of complete darkness, and the only thing Mara wanted was tell him about it. He’d probably laugh at her attacking Quinn before knowing who they were. He would have definitely held her hand while they stepped through the threshold of the refuge.

There were beautiful moments when she’d forgotten that she’d never be able to do either of those things again. Always fleeting, those few seconds were a dream she never wanted to leave, but then she’d open her eyes and the Empty would be there. The Empty was always there.

The next thing Mara knew, large brown eyes were looking up at her, and six green fingers were clawing their way onto her lap. Tears clouded her vision and she sniffed them away, readjusting so that the child could curl up comfortably. She waited for him to close his eyes again, but he didn’t. “Hey, you gotta rest, we have a long day ahead of us,” Mara whispered, trying to keep her voice soft so as not to pull him away from sleep anymore than he already was.

His dreamy gaze didn’t falter. No matter how she rocked, held, or spoke, he kept blinking up at her, as if he was waiting for her to start their day now. Mara stared at the small balcony, half expecting someone to drop down onto it and charge in to seat himself next to her. She’d lean her head against his shoulder, and he’d tell a story that would surely put the rebellious infant to sleep. No one appeared, of course. “Have you heard the story about Alwyn and her dragon?” Mara asked, forcing her eyes away from the balcony to meet the child.

“It’s about an explorer who gets lost on a planet where the only sentient life he could find was a woman, Alwyn, and her dragon. The explorer tries to take her for his own, but the dragon gives its life to save her. I used to love hearing it,” Mara kept her eyes locked on the child’s, he hummed, wriggling in her arms. How could she not smile at that?

“There was always one thing that bothered me though. The dragon, the bravest creature in the story only lives on through what he gave to Alwyn. No one ever tells his story, so I will. Because the dragon wasn’t always a dragon. Once, he was just a boy,” The child watched her every move, like he was actually captivated by her silly attempt at a story. Viv’s enthusiasm to enchant the Child’s Tower was beginning to make sense. Wide, bright wonder in youthful eyes could swallow one whole.

“They say the moment he grew into his legs, he was running. He had too much to see, you know? If he ran, he could get to it all faster. At least, that’s what he always used to say. His family couldn’t keep up with him. No one could. It got him into Trouble, but that was his first love. Trouble made him think he was feeling every part of life. His village was under Imperial control, so their resources were rationed out…and that tended to benefit the army more than it did the villagers. So Trouble was easy to find. He’d spend his nights sprinting through bases, stealing from the supplies of the Imperial guards. No one suspected a child would do such a thing, in fact, he kept his crimes a secret from everyone; his family, his friends, his entire village. Because the boy knew that this was the type of Trouble that was good.”

A large weight got caught in Mara’s throat, she cleared it away with deep breath. “The boy took on too much Trouble one night. He broke into an Imperial med-center to get bacta for the village doctor. He did it in his usual way; he was small, so he could sneak into cargo, dodging the blindspots in storm trooper helmets and racing passed them before they even knew he was there. He got into their medical quarters, but he didn’t know that they had caught onto the missing supplies. He didn’t know they’d installed security holograms. They were waiting for him.”

The child shifted onto his side, resting his head on top of his hands, “They figured he was part of a mass resistance in the village. They threatened to burn it down. He couldn’t…he couldn’t let that happen. So he turned his skin into impenetrable scales, talons pushed through his nails, he grew twenty feet high, wings sprouted from his back, and fire burst from his lungs.”

Tears fell down Mara’s face, and she didn’t stop them this time. She pressed her forehead against the child’s and quiet sobs crumbled her foundation. Six tiny fingers lightly grazed her face. Mara held him tight. “He-he burnt it to the ground,” she mumbled, “He kept his people safe. Because he was so much _more_. So much more than Alwyn’s dragon. He was powerful, and brave…and good…” The Empty ate up the words as they traveled up her mouth, stealing her voice altogether.

With tears streaming hot down her cheeks, Mara rocked the child, his hands still pressed against her face. They stayed this way until sleep embraced them both.


	6. The Dancer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions of abuse/kidnapping, unresolved traumas, grief

_1 Month Before the Escape:_

If one day, Rebellion decided to be born into a person—if it decided to sprout legs and arms and waltz through the galaxy, swirling around planets and prancing across asteroids, turning comets into dance partners and racing the ever expanding universe—it would have been Viv. Viv knew how to deceive. Mars had known this, admired this, ever since the night when they were children and he’d pulled her onto the roof. He hadn’t even looked back to check for the Overlord because he knew that one wouldn’t be there. And if one had been, Viv carried the ability to charm his way out of trouble like it was a sword; his weapon of choice.

“You’re such a great liar, Viv!” Mars had called out after Destrie had rolled out of her bed and she had taken refuge on her balcony to appreciate how the morning sun could kiss her skin without leaving her raw. 

She had been settling into the quiet of a city that wasn’t awake yet when she had heard Viv on his balcony, directly above her. He was skillfully convincing an Overlord that the client who had come into his room, only to find it empty, had been too strung out on spice to be believable. It was a perfectly spun tale, not unlike the fantastical plots he was able to twist for the children, but it was an outright lie. Mars knew that he probably had been on the roof, staring at the lights, letting the wind carry him away. He was a man all too capable of getting lost in the mazes inside his skull, after all. That’s why he was able to tell stories so well; he’d already lived them thousands of times.

After a hard day, he’d retreat to the roof, usually with Mars, and they’d support the weight of each other when they were unable to stand on their own. His eyes folded into the city, and he would disappear. Viv was present now though, as he slowly lowered himself over his balcony’s railing, balancing gracefully on Mars’ banister, before he quietly landed next to her. The moment his feet met the ground, he really brought the theatrics to show how insulted he was by her accusation. His hands raised to his chest like he was easing a pain beneath his sternum, and he fell back into a chair, “You know I only lie to men, Overlords, and Imps.”

Mars threw her hands in the air, mimicking his energy, “That’s nearly everyone.”

He laughed, shaking his head. Dark hair swayed in front of his forehead and he swiped the loose strands behind his ear. His smile was wiped away with them. “Should I be offended that you went up to the roof without me?” Mars asked, trying to keep her voice light.

“It’ll be a month tomorrow,” Viv said, staring at nothing and at everything simultaneously. Mars winced, trying to force away the memory of Scoria disappearing into the hull of an Overlord’s ship. Viv sighed, “She’s not coming back…”

Upon sending Scoria away, the new team of Overlords gathered the Workers into the common room. Destrie, a cloaked figure clothed in burgundy and gold, had taken the lead to explain the new order of the Brothel. Scoria had over stepped her boundaries in her position, so she had to be sent away. _Reconditioning, retraining_ ; words Destrie used to dip reality into sugar; a futile attempt to make it easier to swallow. There would be no Madam to replace her until the time felt right, so the Overlords and guards would take over entirely. Destrie made it sound so _routine_. The Workers were their own kind of battle-worn; the kind of wear they carried even through their passionate affair with Freedom. They knew what it was to spend nights feeling the sweetest notions whispered across their skin, only to wake up and see the morning sun cast rays across their bodies; exposing the purple and black bruises that were left behind in the darkness. They recognized lies, no matter how sweetly they were flavored.

“We knew she wasn’t coming back,” Mars murmured.

“What if she did, though?” Viv asked, lifting to his feet, “What if…What if we brought her back?”

Something constricted in Mars’ chest. She knew Viv was rebellious, she knew he laughed in the face of fear and always looked the Beast in the eye, butshe didn’t know him to have a death wish. She didn’t know him to be _reckless_.

“Don’t do this, Viv. I can’t keep—”

“Don’t do what? We could bring her back to the Brothel. She could finally _lead_ us like she always intended to. The Overlords and Guards wouldn’t be able to take us all down, not when we’re at our best. And we were at our best with Scoria.”

Burning bright light brimmed in Mars. Her hands balled up in tight fists, and she fought the urge to let it all overtake her. She fought the desperate instinct to believe him. He was planting seeds that had already soiled. All while claiming they’d bloom with just the right amount of care. Mars exhaled deeply, trying to cool the fire in her lungs. She waved him off and scoffed as she did.

“You’re not _scared_ are you, Mars?” He smiled through the taunt, but it never met his eyes.

“We wouldn’t stand a chance, right? We have no ship, no credits, no way of knowing how to get to her, and she’s probably dead…”

Mars turned away from him, her chest lurching from the Hope, the heartbreaking possibilities that she knew they’d never be able to seize. Viv grabbed her by the sides of her face, forcing her to face him, “Look the Beast in the eye, Mars. I thought about it all night. Give me time, okay? She’s alive. I can’t explain it…I just know it. I’m doing this. I need you by my side, though.”

“You’re going to land us in a Holding House,” she whispered, staring down at her feet.

He looked at her with such kindness, with such beaming hope that for a single moment, long enough to extinguish the doubt inside her, Mars believed him—wanted to believe him. He always did know how to make her feel brave. She patted his hand. “We’re in this together, right?”

Viv grinned so wide that even his eyes smiled back at her, “Together.” 

—

There wasn’t anything quite like a knee making contact with the soft space underneath the rib cage. Air, a life giving thing, disappeared all together; becoming a disinterested lover. Reaching for it, trying to bring it back into the lungs where it belonged would only make it stay away longer. Mara had forgotten this, until a young human girl, who’s pale skin offset her jet black hair, had twisted her body around so quickly out of Mara’s grasp that she didn’t have time to dodge the girl’s knee.

Xena was her name, and she was fast. Mara had been working with her the last three afternoons. Xena’s eyes lit up when Quinn had mentioned Mara refreshing their skills in self defense, and after group training, she’d asked Mara to teach her one on one, surpassing the basics. And now, Mara’s back was stuck to the mat in the corner room where she and the girl could stay out of the way of the daily routine of the refuge. Mara shut her eyes, willing her diaphragm to work again as Xena scrambled to the ground, sliding to her side, “I’m so sorry Mara! I got carried away, I didn’t—”

Mara held her hand up, sitting upright as her lungs began to slowly absorb oxygen again. “No, no. You did good,” The compliment came out as more of a wheeze than a spoken sentence. Her voice took its time to return.

“I need to get some protective gear if I’m going to be working with you!” Mara said with a smirk that quickly turned to a wince as she stood up, this time able to get her vocal cords to produce the beginnings of a whisper.

Xena laughed, as she so often did. She might as well have been made of the stuff—it poured out of her, a bottle filled to its brim. The sound made Mara smile despite herself, and she even commented on it to Quinn when Xena had helped her up and they returned to the common area of the refuge. The child was sitting with the pregnant Twi’lek, now known to Mara as Serra Twinn. “It took us days to get Xena to even speak to us,” Quinn had said, watching Xena glide over to play cards with a couple of women huddled on the bunk beds, “She must have had all of that laughter saved up because now she’s exploding with it. She was a tough one to crack, but once she did, she was all softness. My favorite type.”

Mara poured herself a glass of water, gulping it down so ravenously that droplets dripped down the sides of her mouth. “Give her about a year of consistent training and she’ll be the one doing the cracking,” she declared, wiping her face.

Quinn patted Mara on her side, where Xena’s knee had left it sensitive, and she winced from the pain. They leaned in like they were telling her a secret, their voice rimmed with a smile, “I know this may be hard to hear, but I think she already is.”

Mara whirled around to face the Twi’lek, dizzy from the speed of the movement, but chuckling nonetheless,“Have you forgotten our round in the alley so quickly, Quinn? Because I can remind you.”

They held their hands up in surrender. “Some of us handle our quarrels _civilly_ , dear.”

“Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.” Mara grumbled, grabbing her side, to hold herself still.

Quinn and Mara stood and watched over the refuge for a moment in light, airy silence. It was the time of day where activity was winding down. There were no windows, they were far out of reach of the sky, but the ever-present _knowing_ of the cycles of the sun lived in the bones. “I’ve spoken to our smuggler by the way,” Quinn said suddenly, their voice darkening.

Her heart hitched violently in her chest, “And?”

“We don’t have much. He is meeting our informant on Bespin in two days. He’s dropping off supplies in six, but I am sure he will send a transmission with an update as soon as they’re through.”

She swallowed thickly, trying to keep the stubborn thing in her chest from blooming too bright too quickly. She didn’t want it to burn out. She’d done that too many times already; let the flame grow on its own, take up too much space, get too large to nurture. And when there was nothing else for it to consume, it would swallow up into smoke as quickly as it ignited.

The child was stroking Serra’s lekku now. He seemed to be entranced by how his green skin matched hers. Serra had been cautious to hold him just the first day Mara had arrived to train, but now, the very instant Mara shut the door on the dusty stairwell, the Twi’lek would sweep over and scoop him out of her hands. She’d carry him through the refuge all day, bouncing him around and talking to him as if he could understand her—which, now, Mara fervently believed he could—and he would press his large ears against her swollen belly when the baby started to kick. “I’m getting my practice in!” Serra would say whenever she’d catch Mara watching.

Mara cradled the child in her arms, and said her goodbyes before returning to her tiny room in the inn. She was stretched out across the bench on the balcony with him on her lap and, in perfect silence, they watched the sky dip into a deep purple. Clerks closed up their shops, artisans packed up their creations and boarded up their carts, one by one, glowing yellow lights inside clay buildings blew out; the town was falling asleep.

“Mara,” the com link scratched, and without even looking, she handed it off to tiny hands.

The kid excitedly tapped the speaker, making nonsensical noises into it. It had been three days since the Mandalorian had made contact, and while Mara had almost forgotten about the device entirely, the child obviously had not. “Hey buddy,” the Mandalorian said softly, once the babbling slowed, “You good?”

If it hadn’t walked hand in hand with the ever-present threat of her own death, the warrior’s devotion to the child would have been endearing. It was a funny concept to her; the man made of metal who was soft for a tiny helpless thing. “He’s safe, Mando,” Mara responded, not bothering to take the comlink out of the child’s hands, “ _And_ he hasn’t eaten a single frog in three days. I dare say, you could make the claim that he’s been well-behaved.”

“You’d think he was fifty years old.”

The reciprocated banter caught Mara off guard, and she found herself smiling, “Don’t get comfortable, they say kids don’t get difficult until they turn sixty,” she teased lightly.

“I don’t know how I’ll handle it.” Was that a smile disguised in his voice?

“I have a feeling you’ll be just fine.”

The comlink fell silent, and Mara was prepared for it to stay that way. She shifted the child in her arms, putting the comlink back into her pocket when it scratched awake again, “How has—Are you both staying occupied?”

There was something in the way he said it, hollowed out, timid almost; a feeling hidden in his tone that Mara recognized straight away. She chuckled, making sure the comlink picked it up, “In just three days you went from threatening me to asking how our day is?”

No response. Mara’s chest tightened. _You stupid, stupid woman._ “If I tell you, you have to know that we’re safe. You have to trust me just a little bit, okay? I’ve watched your foundling for six days with no—”

“What did you do?” The Mandalorian grilled; a demand, not a mere inquiry.

“Nothing, but…I found others like me,” she cringed as she said it, “Runaways, I guess. But they’re safe. I trust them. I didn’t tell you because they have leads to Scoria, I couldn’t risk…you know, getting myself killed.”

“Why risk it now?”

She hummed, pretending to contemplate the answer, doing everything she could to keep the conversation light, airy, “Now you seem to be in a better mood.”

Mara waited for his response with bated breath. She looked into the child’s eyes, wondering how much, right now, he understood. “Okay,” he finally muttered, “And?”

She blinked up at the stars beginning to peak through the empty sky, “And what?”

The comlink sighed, long and tired, “ _And_ what have you found out?”

Of all of the possible responses she expected from the Mandalorian; another warning to keep his foundling safe that would surely be followed up by a threat, silence, or even a simple acknowledgment and a reminder to answer his call tomorrow, this had not been what Mara prepared herself for.

There had been no script, no explanations planned out to keep the conversation short. And truth be told, it had been so long since she had the opportunity to share anything with someone. So when she launched into the story of how she found the refuge, she was immediately unraveling _all_ of it; the fight with Quinn in the alley way, their knowledge of Scoria and the revolution she was so intimately apart of, training a group of women in self defense, the smuggler, the pregnant Twi’lek who adored the child…

The comlink wasn’t silent as Mara would have expected it to be either. The Mandalorian lightly scolded her for leaving the blaster in the room, inquired about the revolution in ways that were impossible for Mara to answer, commented on the techniques she’d been using to refresh the women’s training, and even huffed out an amused breath of air when she spoke of Xena stealing the air from her lungs.

The conversation wasn't necessarily riveting, in fact, the child had closed his eyes and drifted off about half way through. The steady cadence of soft voices gently lulled him to sleep. But it was normal in a way Mara hadn’t experienced since a dream-like a time when conversation could be boring, could be ordinary, could carry nothing more than just the weight of words.

Days passed by in beautiful similarity. She and the child would swallow down breakfast as quickly as they could before coming face to face with the perfectly carved triangle on a wooden door in the basement of the teashop. It had turned from a haphazard carving in a door into a beacon hidden in plain sight. Calling out to those who could see it, those who knew its siren _:_ We are here. You have found us.

Mara did everything she could to be an asset to Quinn, to Kai, to the Refuge, or whoever needed extra hands. And once her legs were numb and the daily activity quieted, she’d stumble back to her tiny room, cradling a tired child, and wait for the comlink to scratch once the pink sky began to turn purple.

Every morning, Serra Twinn would sweep away with the child, and Mara’s runaways eagerly lined up in front of her. Some were more experienced than others, and there were moments when Mara and Xena ricocheted off of each other, blocking blows, and felt as though she was back on Keyorin. When Xena would dip behind Mara or duck low to dodge a hit, she could have sworn Elisia or Viv or Scoria would appear in Xena’s place. That was the brilliance of the refuge. It was new and it was home all at once.

Quinn and Mara had fallen into friendly report quickly as well. They often watched Mara train from the sidelines. Occasionally, they’d wordlessly step in to correct poor posture that Mara hadn’t caught; widening a Twi’lek’s stance, lifting a woman’s elbow. Not intruding on the lesson, not asserting their authority, but helping in moments where they could. It was how they were. Quinn was a silent guide, fixing and correcting any emergencies with an unwavering sense of grace and calm and empathy.

Mara tried not to wear Quinn thin with constant questions of the smuggler’s status, but it was beginning to get harder to ignore the relentless tapping on the inside of her skull. The constant rap of restlessness was a horror in itself, and the Twi’lek seemed to understand. They were never short, never curt with her when she asked the question, “Have we heard anything?”

They would shake their head solemnly and remind her, “Smugglers are not known for their punctuality, but you will have your answers soon.” Then they’d sweep her off to accompany them on their chores.

It was over two buckets of sudsy water and a mop that Quinn finally revealed who they were underneath all that silver skin. Mara had overheard Xena talking about Coruscant; how it was a tangled mess of lights and bodies and speeder bikes and the rush of countless lives. Mara wondered aloud what Coruscant looked. She squeezed excess dirty water into a bucket. Quinn propped themself against the handle of their mop, resting a perfectly carved chin against their long fingers, “It's the galaxy’s sun. No matter what planet you’re on, what system you’re in, somehow you’re still revolving around Coruscant. But I just remember the _music_.”

“You’re from Coruscant?” Mara asked, not even attempting to downplay her eagerness to know more.

“Ryloth,” they corrected, “My parents raised me away from the core cities. They fled to the jungles to keep me from being seen.”

Mara stared blankly at them. Their hazel eyes turned downward as she spoke, “Why would you need to be—”

“Slavery export is a big business on Ryloth. If you’re a Twi’lek and you look a certain way, your odds of living a free life are very slim.”

As Quinn spoke, they nearly grew spines, their canines dripped venom. There was no dipping the reality in sugar, there was no covering this kind of bitterness. Mara just nodded, knowing there was nothing she could say that the they didn’t already know. “You can only hide for so long. I went to a neighboring mountain village to pick up a few vegetables for this truly disgusting stew my mother would make,” they chuckled, the kind that’s intended to dull the inevitable serrated edge of a story.

“I met a boy while I walked, and we went all the way to the store and back together. He charmed me. During my adolescence, I had gotten quite lonely and jaded to the risks of my existence. He asked to see me again. So we made a deal to meet that night in the same place we had found each other…Let’s just say he wasn’t the one who was waiting for me when I returned.”

Her heart wrenched hard at the familiar tale. A tale that Mara had seen ten-fold. A tale when someone does all they can to fight their fate; they do everything right, and they still get dragged down into the darkness. Mara stepped closer, leaning the mop against the wall and grabbing their hand. They smiled at her, “But it brought me to Coruscant. Where I heard _music._ The best kinds of music; kinds I had never heard before.”

“You were a dancer,” Mara noted. Even in the grips of enslavement, dancers talked about music the same way any musician or performer would; as an impassioned love affair.Quinn brightened, lifting Mara’s hand above their heads and twirling around her, “I was a _dancer!_ I didn’t have a taste for the clients. Though, that’s how I met our smuggler, Tanian Burris. His gang raided the cantina one night _ages_ ago. They brought down the entire place. Introduced me to the ways of the Collective; how to fight, who to trust…” they trailed off, entirely lost in time. “Anyway, it’s all just history now.”

Mara smiled, and without even thinking, she pulled Quinn into her arms. Holding them the way one holds a dance partner. They laughed brightly at her gesture, but followed her lead nonetheless. “We go through too much for one lifetime, don’t we?” Mara whispered into Quinn’s shoulder, “I suppose it’s why we’re strong.”

Making a point to look her in the eye, Quinn backed away. “The wounds forced upon us didn’t give us our strength. We are strong because it’s who we are.”

“It’d be nice to not have to be.” Mara said, despite the sentiment, her smile didn’t fade as she spun Quinn.

“Only fools say that one must be hard to be strong. There’s bravery in softness. That’s why I love the refuge—our kind knows that best.”

They swayed together to the thrumming rhythm of the refuge until the mops, the buckets, meals that needed to be prepared, and the responsibilities that they were avoiding called out too loud for them to ignore.

It was only when impatience ceased it's tapping that Quinn’s holoprojector lit up bright blue. A small siren called out for attention. Quinn was helping Kai take stock of medical supplies, and Mara had been feeding the child. The moment the sound echoed across the walls, she scooped him the infant, who was now frustrated from being taken away from his meal, and she raced to the Twi’lek’s side.

A booming voice burst from a translucent blue figure. Tanian’s eyes stared into empty space in front of him, but they were round, bright. They looked like they’d be filled with stories. His white hair sprung out every which way, and his face was framed by a thick mustache that he touched with two fingers in between sentences as he thought of what to say next. He was taking too long; droning on aimlessly, and driving Mara mad.

Tanian weaved in and out of his own sentences like he didn’t know where he was going next. He was explaining some extensive story about getting enough Bacta for Kai before Mara truly tuned into what he was saying, “Oh, and I send my apologies for not getting back to you as soon as I left with Cam Lex. Bespin was a mess. I worried I was being tracked, so I waited until I was sure we were not before sending an update. It’s not all bad news, Cam says the subject is, indeed, alive. I have more intel, but I think it’d be best to exchange it in person. I land at dawn.”

 _The subject is, indeed, alive. The subject is, indeed, alive._ Nothing else mattered. Nothing else mattered. Scoria was alive. Mara was stuck in her own looping relief. Quinn sighed solemnly, and put the holoprojector back into their pocket. The action, done so slowly, with such tiredness, pulled Mara back into reality, and she tried to calm the burning flames that were starting to nip at her ribcage.

Kai, having overheard Tanian’s message, sank into view, pulling Quinn into a conversation. For the first time, Mara felt like an outsider. She nodded farewell to them and practically ran to the door, up the cob web stairs, and out into the streets.

Darkness had wiped away the pink sky, and the lights twinkled above the bazaar. The child was entranced by beings beginning to happily bounce around each other as they made their way to cantinas and restaurants that were filled to the brim with laughter and music. Mara reached for the comlink, her breath catching at her throat as she realized she’d left it sitting on her mantle. She wasn’t usually this late, there was a single moment where she wondered whether the Mandalorian would be angry at her for not answering, but then she saw the band.

It was the tiny brass band that she had been enchanted by on the first night she landed on the planet. The musicians vibrated and swayed as they played, their eyes closed from the flow of their song. Beings were swirling around her, grabbing each other’s hands to sway to the music. The stars above, the warm air, the sweet smell of the grass, the howl of the instruments, and the promises of tomorrow brought a wide smile across her face. Maybe she was still giddy from newly received answers, maybe swaying with Quinn infected her, or maybe life breathed so much into her that there was only one thing she could think to do.

Mara looked down at the child and readjusted him in her arms so that she could wrap one of his small hands in her grasp. He blinked up at her, large ears tilting from confusion, and Mara pressed a quick kiss onto his forehead. “You’ve never danced before, huh?” She asked, and started to fall into step with the dancers around her.  
  
A giggle erupted from the infant, his head bobbing as the rhythm pranced and spun them through the crowd. It was just Mara, the wrinkled child laughing in her arms, and the music. Viv would have loved the sight.


	7. Mara's Refuge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence, death, grief

The Mandalorian dropped onto small balcony way too late for his liking. There wasn’t time for him to move the carbonite block that used to be the quarry into its appropriate spot before he had flown away from the Razor Crest to figure out what was going on at the other end of his comlink. He was two days early. Mara had no excuse for not answering. For the entirety of his flight back to the inn, his mind raced with every possible outcome he could walk up on. He could handle anything. Almost anything.

Mara could have realized how valuable the child was. She could have run off with him, ready to sell him to the highest bidder. They both could have been ambushed by bounty hunters. Maybehe had overestimated her fighting abilities. Maybe she had left him alone too long. The Mandalorian was surprising himself. He never knew how unhinged he’d become after one day of not hearing the child babble into the comlink.

So, it was much too late when his boots made contact with the balcony. The impact of a desperate landing rang through his knee caps.

There was a lively celebration igniting in the streets below, and the Mandalorian felt more annoyed by its vibrance than uplifted. The laughter of drunk patrons and the music howling through the night only reminded him of how dread had replaced the blood in his veins. The door to get inside the room was locked, so the Mandalorian turned to the control panel to input the code he had been given to open the sliding glass. The room was eerily silent in comparison to the chaos that resounded off of the buildings outside. The small blaster he had leant to Mara was sitting on the bedside table, and he cursed the woman for not having it on her at all times. There was fresh fruit sitting on the small table, it had to have been bought recently. A bag of clothes was still leaned against the wall. Mara was still here, at least she had been recently. And it didn’t seem as though she had any intention of leaving. A portion of the weight in his chest lifted.

He charged out onto the balcony, grabbing the railings to push himself over them. Before he launched himself into the air, a small, bouncing glimpse of green caught his eye. It swirled through the dancing, pulsing crowd below before he lost it again. It reappeared almost as quickly as it disappeared. Din’s heart was no longer beating. The child was grinning wide, all of his teeth exposed as Mara spun him around to the sound of the horns. Smoke twirling through the crowd, she had the same expression across her face, amber eyes were on fire. Her smile made them crinkle so much that the burning gold almost disappeared completely. Their laughter was overpowered by a vibrant melody. Din fell back, unable to pull his eyes away from the sight. All of the dread he carried had evaporated and the music carried it away.

An argument could be made that he should go down into the bazaar, make Mara and his foundling aware of his presence, and have her follow him back to the Razor Crest so that their deal could be completed as quickly as possible. But Din hadn’t seen the child laugh like this since they left Sorgan, and, not that it really mattered, Mara was smiling like she had just learned how. He couldn’t cut through the crowd, he couldn’t interrupt them as they clumsily swayed to the music, he couldn’t stop his foundling’s laughter. What harm would it do to leave them alone for a little while longer? He sat against the wall of the inn and watched them dance.

Din had lost track of how many songs had passed by. The music slowed though, and the child’s eyelids started to become weighed down by exhaustion. Mara readjusted her grip on him, letting his head rest against her shoulder while she slowly rocked him, encouraging him to fall completely asleep. Once the child was just dead weight on her shoulder, she disappeared into the crowd.

He didn’t stand up until he heard the screeching cry of the door opening. The Mandalorian stepped into the room, but the moment he did there was a flash of bright red.

Something slammed hard against the front of his helmet, launching him backward. He stumbled out onto the balcony from the sheer force of impact, losing his footing. A metallic ring sung aggressively, ricocheting around his head. “Did you just _shoot me?”_ He barked, trying to refocus his vision onto Mara, who was holding her hands up in surrender, the blaster dangling from her forefinger by its trigger guard.

“ _Mando!_ You can’t just sneak in—I didn’t mean to,” Mara’s eyes were wide and her chest rising and falling from each exasperated breath she took, “I’ve never been happier that you’re covered in armor.”

The Mandalorian shook his head to clear out the ringing that was vibrating his skull, “At least I know you _can_ use a blaster if you decide to actually have it on you.”

Once clarity refined the Mandalorian’s vision again, he brushed by Mara to see the child, who had been curled up on the corner of the bed. The cry from a blaster had pulled him out of his sleep, and he was reaching out the Mandalorian to be picked up. A command he always obeyed. “How quickly can you be ready to go?” He asked, noticing the child’s collar had flipped inside out and automatically readjusting it.

Mara didn’t respond right away, and fidgeted with the blaster before setting it on the bed side table. “You don’t want to rest before?” She asked, acting as if it was a genuine concern of hers, but something was hidden in between the spaces of her words.  
  
“What’s the problem?”

Mara’s brow furrowed, and she pursed her lips. She was the antithesis of the woman in the bazaar who had been smiling so wide that it overtook her entire face. “There’s a smuggler who’s been in touch with a spy on Bespin. He has information on Scoria. He’s landing tomorrow morning,” she finally said.

“Couldn’t the smuggler take you to Bespin?” The Mandalorian inquired. Getting out of the deal wasn’t entirely his reason for asking, but Mara had been adamant that these were her own kind, she had trusted them. The job was beginning to feel as though it had already been completed.

Mara sat on the bed and nodded in agreement, “In theory. He has a set schedule, though. If I throw him off course, it’ll mess up his route; delay relocating runaways, getting supplies to other refuges. I got lucky this time around, but if Scoria’s alive, I’d need to get to her…like yesterday. So our deal isn’t void yet.”

The child was beginning to nod off again, his head drooping down, making his ears flop forward. The Mandalorian absorbed Mara’s proposal. Doubt had carved its way into his head since finding out his passenger had close ties to the Empire, and while it had slowly been subdued in recent days, something still tugged underneath his chest plate. Doubt; a constant, persistent annoyance. The Mandalorian figured he could subdue Doubt if he could assess the stakes and dangers that accompanied her. “When are you meeting him?” He asked simply.

“Dawn,” Mara straightened, a smirk just beginning to pull at the corner of her mouth, “You’ll wait for me?”

“No,” the Mandalorian replied, making his way to the door with his foundling, ignoring the way her face fell, “But I’ll join you.”

This made Mara lift to her feet in a way that would have read as suspicious if she hadn’t already proven, time and time again, that she was a woman who hid her intentions for reasons that only she could fathom. “No! You’re not coming with me!” she cried out, “I’ll be done before you even—”

Mara’s next words, whatever they were, fell mute behind the squeal of the metal door sliding shut. The Mandalorian walked into the night, to his ship, with his foundling, like he’d done countless times before.

He slept for the first time in two days, and still woke before the sky. Dawn had hardly rolled over to wash the town in the planet’s staple pink glow, but he was already propped up against the side of a shop, just a few buildings down from the inn. He had come to know Mara. He had seen how she could sneak and scheme, and he knew that she wouldn’t accept his presence without a fight.

Leaving her behind felt like the easiest option, and today would have been the perfect time to do so. A younger Din would have taken that opportunity without second-thought, especially when the passenger in question was capable of taking care of herself, but a younger Din would have also handed the kid over to the Client without second thought. And something in him tugged at the mere idea of the look in her eyes upon realizing she had been abandoned there. The best way to keep the wet tug under his sternum at bay was to go with her, and figure out if his bad feeling was just that—a _feeling_.

 _The kid’s made you soft._ Din had been told this repeatedly as of late. The accusation didn’t sting like it was meant to. He’d always been pretty jaded to the words of others. As long as he got the job in front of him done, his motivations should be meaningless.

He had just begun to wonder whether Mara had anticipated his moves, and had already snuck off to the refuge when he saw her drift slowly out of the Inn. She scanned the streets, her eyes immediately landing on the Mandalorian. He wasn’t trying to hide from her. And for a single breath it seemed like she had expected him to be there, like she accepted that his presence was nonnegotiable. But her shoulders slouched a bit and she rolled her eyes. The Mandalorian smirked.

“Morning,” she called out, indifferent.

A bag slung across her back, Mara wore no holster and she carried no weapon. She was going in entirely vulnerable; something he was beginning to be frustrated by. He’d told her to keep the blaster on her nearly every night for five days. “Where’s that blaster?” The Mandalorian asked, trying to keep his tone even.

 _“_ I’m not going armed, Mando. I know this place, I know Quinn. It looks bad if we go in there looking like we’re outfitted for battle.”

“We aren’t. It’s a precaution,” He spat back, irritated that anyone would consider something as trivial as a _bad impression_ more important than the possibility of impending threat, “Are you sure you can trust her?”

Mara swung around, the lights above cast harsh shadows across her face. “Who?”

“Quinn.”

“Of course. Quinn doesn't go by _her,_ either. Quinn is Quinn,” she narrowed her eyes and dragged her tired gaze from the Mandalorian’s helmet to his boots, “Don’t forget that, because they have sharp teeth.”

 _Quinn is Quinn_. Three words threw the Mandalorian back onto a training field; the sun beaming down on a swath of well-organized foundlings, nervously fidgeting and cautiously watching the armored figure who towered above. The warrior slowly paced the line of children, studying each one closely before stopping. “Foundlings! I am Shia Vess,” The armored figure called out, and Din exchanged a quick glance with a girl to his right, she was ordained with a halo of red hair. The children straightened and looked up at the Mandalorian, “By Creed, until you are of age or reunited with your kind, you will be raised as our own. This means…before anything, you are Mandalorians. There is no more _you_. We walk, fight, live together; as one.”

Din averted his gaze away from the visor of the Shia’s helmet, and stared down at his shoes. Still clothed in red garb that felt a little too much like home, he ached for his parents. It hadn’t been more than a day since they were swallowed up by the doors of a cellar. It hadn’t been more than a day since he and his father had been trailing behind his mother as she wandered through the mechanic’s shop, searching for a drill bit for the holoprojector that was beginning to glitch. And the shelves of tools began to clatter. And the ground began to crumble beneath their feet. And fire lit up the sky and created a labyrinth of flames in the streets.

It hadn’t been more than a day, and they were gone. In this moment, with his eyes locked onto the dark ash that stained his shoes, he decided that if he could go back, he wouldn’t have gone into the cellar. He wouldn’t have let the doors close and the fire swallow up his family.

Din’s heart was still too soft, too new, to know just how much the galaxy can snuff out in mere seconds. Too much of him still believed his parents were out there; the Mandalorians were just taking care of him until they returned, and they’d take him back to where he belonged. With his own kind. His heart was still too soft, too new, to know the permanence of loss.

Giant boots came into vision, meeting toe to toe with Din. He squinted up at Shia, realizing their helmet was the same color blue as the Mandalorian who had reached out to lift him out of the dark. It was becoming hard to differentiate between the warriors. “There is only one Way. The Way of the Mandalore,” Shia said to the crowd of foundlings.

The visor turned downward, bearing into Din now, speaking to no one else, “Vaabir gar suvarir, ad?” They asked, and when Din could manage no other response besides blinking up at them, they translated, their voice firm, but kind, “Do you understand, son?”

He managed to nod rapidly, looking back down at his feet. The Mandalorian turned to the wild red headed girl now, “Vaabir gar suvarir, ad?”

“Ni cuy' nayc ad,” She retorted, crossing her arms. It would be a few weeks until Din’s ear would adjust to Mando’a, and he’d realize that she had bravely said _I am no son_. “I’m a girl,” she continued, returning to her native tongue and refusing to hide her annoyance.

“Ah, you may be. However to Mandalore, to us, to your new language, there is no difference between you, him,” Shia’s helmet flicked in Din’s direction, “And me. _Ad_ means son. It also means daughter. _Who_ you are, _what_ you are…it does not matter. Shi sa munit sa gar kar’taylir, Mando'ade cuyir Mando’ade sol'yc.”

_Just as long as you know, Mandalorians are Mandalorians first._

“Quinn is Quinn,” Mando repeated as Mara turned on the ball of her foot to continue down the street, “Mandalorians are Mandalorians. I can manage.”

“Mandalorians are—Am I missing something?” She kicked the dirt a bit, slowing down so that she could fall into step next to him. Her eyes had softened, like the annoyance had disappeared with the shadows across her face.

There hadn’t been a moment where he’d really thought about it. The language he grew up with stood strong through millennia, and the culture’s successful endurance was steadfastly bound in obeying the Creed and protecting those who swore it. “No,” he stated, “But in Mando’a there is only one word we use to address others. Everything is about the whole; the Tribe. There isn’t much differentiation between us.”

The sky was beginning to open up, yawning and drenching the horizon in pink. Mara was locked onto it, nodding absently to herself, “What’s the word?”

“ _Kaysh.”_

“One word…covers everyone,” Mara mused.

“Everything else is implied.”

Mara guided him to a small, eclectic teashop. It’s windows were dark and nothing besides still air lay behind the panes of glass. Mara tapped in a code on the control panel, and the door clicked. She stepped into the darkness, the Mandalorian followed. She spoke into the empty room, “Do you see yourself in that term? What was it? _Kay_ —”

“ _Kaysh_. I’ve never thought about it,” he interrupted, “I was just a boy when the Mandalorian’s took me in as a foundling. I already had my own culture when they indoctrinated me into theirs.”

It was, more or less, the story the Mandalorian had become used to telling. He usually kept the details vague enough to not give any parts of himself away, but this held capsules of truth that he hadn’t intended. The expectation to seamlessly mold into the Mandalorian Creed had been made clear the moment he became a foundling, and even as a child, he had done just that effortlessly. But his chest also ached as he shrugged off the red tunic for the last time the night he arrived with the Tribe and he held back tears when he prayed for his parents to find him as he slowly folded it, taking his time to run his hands over the fabric as an attempt to memorize every stitch. He tried. But he can’t recall how the threading felt. He doesn’t remember the exact shade of crimson.

His life exists in two parts—Before and After the Mandalorians. And the tiny sliver of Before had frayed at the edges. Any attempt to focus on a singular moment before he was lowered into the cellar felt akin to staring through a foggy telescope. And even memories of that day, the day that launched him into the After, could only be made clear by a bellowing clamber or a nightmare that would wipe the telescope clean and remind him how he got here.

How he got here. How he got here; in a teashop, trailing behind Mara as she ducked into an empty kitchen. She pulled back a collection of tattered fabric that hung above the crooked threshold of a doorway. An unlit, dusty stairwell opened up before them. “Your own culture…What was it like?” She paused on a step for a moment before reaching a wooden door at the foot of the stairs.

The Mandalorian stared down at her. Usually, his silence grew from his general disinterest in responding to questions that would give people permission to dip their fingers under the ridge of his beskar and search for more—even now, that held true. However, he also wasn’t entirely sure what to say; how to answer a question when the answer had begun to fade. Mara chuckled, not in amusement, but in resignation, “I almost forgot who I was talking to. You were doing so well too.”

Mara whipped around before Mando could respond. She traced her fingers over the small triangle carved into the door as she tapped in another code into a control panel. There was click, and the door swung open, light beaming into the stair well. Mara fell into it, the Mandalorian followed.

Mara’s refuge was dimly lit. Women, mostly humans and Twi’leks, were scattered around a main room. Some were preparing food, clambering through a small kitchen to prepare rations in bulk. Others were still rubbing groggy eyes and stretching tired limbs. A Bothan, standing two heads taller than everyone in the room, carefully placed syringes of gel into a cooling cabinet. There was a human man with wild white hair and facial hair to match, talking at a silver Twi’lek who was chopping fruit and swiping it into a bowl. A golden crown covered their forehead, and the moment the Mandalorian stepped out of the dark stair well, their eyes narrowed in his direction.

A small girl with dark hair and translucent skin skipped up to Mara and planted herself in their path. She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice got lost in her throat. She looked down, “We’re not training, I guess?”

“Not today,” Mara softened, reaching out and rubbing the girl’s shoulder. This must be Xena. The one Mara had spoken so fondly of; not that she had any ounce of distaste when talking about the refuge, even through the static of a comlink that was overwhelmingly apparent. Her entire demeanor changed here. She left the weight of the galaxy outside of the teashop.

The Bothan called out to her, eyeing the Mandalorian as he threw a vial of clear gel. Mara caught it and turned it over in her hands, holding it up in the light. “Bacta!” The Bothan said, a smile exposing his canines. He tapped his temple with a clawed finger, “Fix that messed up face of yours!”

Mara rolled her eyes, sliding the vial into her pocket, “Has anyone told you how charming you are, Kai?”

Kai nodded thoughtfully, “Now that you mention it, I don’t get the recognition I deserve.”

The Twi’lek slid some fruit into a bowl with their knife as Mara approached, the Mandalorian walking in step behind her. They never once looked away from the helmet’s visor. In normal circumstances, the sheer abhorrence behind those eyes would have been an annoyance, but now, it was a comfort. If Mara warranted such fierce protection from the head of the refuge, so would his foundling. Mara knew her people well, they had been safe. It made the 12 nights hopping through prairie towns searching for a slippery bail jumper, riddled with anxieties until the sky changed and he’d hear the child through the comlink, feel foolish.

Quinn smiled warmly at Mara and gestured toward the giant of a man standing next to them, “Mara, this is Tanian Burris,” Their voice spilled out smooth, like water, “He was _just_ starting to tell me about his meeting with the spy,” The statement came out resembling a polite order for Tanian to obey than the actual reality.

A booming voice exploded out of Tanian, he grabbed Mara by the hand, shaking it so hard that her entire shoulder was swept into the gesture, “Mara! Sweet Mara! Quinn has told me so much! You have no idea how much help it is to have someone continue what Scoria taught. I’m happy they found you!” He turned to the Mandalorian now, “And you come with a _Mandalorian_ too. You keep interesting company, hm?”

Mara was smiling wide when the Twi’lek interjected. They slid the knife across their hands, wiping off small morsels of left over skin from the fruit, “Interesting company indeed,” Quinn stated, “Do you know how many fighters we have out there, Mandalorian?”

Was this about to be a threat? There’s no way this was _actually_ about to be a threat. The Mandalorian tilted his head, partially from curiosity, mostly from amusement. Quinn sliced hard into a new piece of fruit, cutting straight through the pit, “We’ve been turning workers into warriors for decades. And we’ve perfected it. You’d never know it if you saw us. Unlike your kind, we ensure our reputation does not precede us. We are invisible; hidden in every corner of the galaxy.”

A normal man would have been wise to heed the warnings of the Twi’lek, and the Mandalorian knew this. However, he wasn’t interested in entertaining this rebellion any longer than his deal with Mara lasted. It was almost a shame to see such a display of power go completely wasted. Tanian watched on with a bright glint of pride shining in his blue eyes while Mara stiffened, tapping the counter to get the Twi’lek’s attention, “It’s okay, Quinn, really.”

“So you see, Mandalorian,” Quinn raised the knife blade, ignoring Mara’s plea for a ceasefire. They stared directly into his helmet’s visor, “If any harm comes to Mara, _any_ at all, there is not a single planet in this galaxy where we won’t find you.”

Hearing his own words spoken back to him hadn’t necessarily been what he expected. He’d intended to scare Mara to ensure her loyalty when he said them, and, sure, he’d meant every single word. But he hadn’t really thought she’d hold onto them. The Mandalorian nodded, though, hoping to move the conversation back in Mara’s direction, “The foundling is my only priority, and it’s clear he was in safe hands.”

Still hardened and dripping in spite, Quinn opened their mouth to speak, filed incisors exposed. The Twi’lek had been right about one thing; they knew how to hide in plain sight. An entire rebellion had grown in the shadows, so quietly and so effectively, that they even had Imperial Admirals taking over their cause. Mara cut through the tension before Quinn could say anything else, “See? No problems here. Tanian, whatcha got?”

Tanian’s eyes were still wide and dilated with delight, as he swallowed a large bite of fruit that he had helped himself too. “Oh,” He wiped his mustache with the back of his hand and cleared his throat, “Cam Lex. Remember that name, Mara. He’s our guy. The poor man is buried. When I saw him he was practically shaking in his boots. He’s not the ‘fight on the frontlines’ type of guy, you know what I mean?” Tanian gestured at the Mandalorian now, winking.

“ _Tanian,_ ” Quinn warned, “Stay on track.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he raised his large hands nonchalantly, “He thinks the Syndicates are catching wise to us. They know there’s a plant, so not much is leaving the top floor of the Resort.”

“The Resort?” Mara asked

Quinn stepped forward, “The hub of the Prostitution Syndicate on Bespin.” 

Tanian hummed, absentmindedly running his hands through his hair, “Luckily, Lex still has some credibility up there. So we know that Scoria’s alive. Locked up, but alive. I don’t know if there’s any information she’s given them—”

“She’d never do that,” Mara hissed.

Tanian sighed, “We hope she never would, but—”

“I _know_ she never would,” she said through gritted teeth.

The Twi’lek and the smuggler exchanged obvious glances of skepticism with each other. Mara shook her head, turning away from their doubt. Tanian didn’t let Mara’s fire slow him down though, “Either way, we’ve lost control of four brothels since we lost Keyorin and two before that. Lex is scrambling,” Tanian turned to Mara, “I’m sure you noticed, dear. Where there was once one Overlord to watch over the Madam and the workers, now we’re getting a team of them and they’re bypassing Madams all together. They know something, and somehow they now have the resources to stop us. We didn’t even have these issues under the _Empire_.”

The Twi’lek pushed off of the counter, pacing the small kitchen as they tapped a ringed finger against their chin. “And what about our refuges?”

Some sounds are impossible to misplace—the roar of hyperspace, the kid’s laugh, a blaster bolt tearing through skin and bone and organs; leaving behind blistered and sizzling and glowing flesh. Tanian would have answered the question, his mouth opened to do so. But instead of speaking, his jaw fell slack. His blue eyes went blank like they were covered up by a thin veil. A charred, smoking hole shined in the place where his heart would have been. And Tanian Burris, lifeless and staring, slid to the ground to a chorus of screams and blaster fire.


	8. A Brutal Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: PTSD symptoms, panic attack symptoms, violence, death

_10 Years Before the Escape:_

The clashing of metal was easily drowned out by the sounds of the city. Even though Keyorin was notorious for brawls in its streets, it still wasn’t normal for the sounds of vibroblades cutting through the air and loudly cracking against metal shin and arm guards to echo from the roof of a brothel. Scoria scuffled down the line of fighters, pausing in front of two Twi’lek’s, Wynn and Yuli, watching closely as they twisted their blades around each other, “Good spin, Yuli. You see why that works? It drives you forward. You’re only fighting Wynn now, but if you were fighting multiple people, you can force your opponents away, and take them down one by one as you flow through each motion. Great form.”

Mars caught the very last part of Scoria’s direction just before Elisia’s blade slammed against her arm guard. It rang out viciously, and Mars reared back, kicking Elisia as hard as she could manage to put space back in-between them. She gripped her blade with both hands, and lunged forward, reclaiming the entirety of the space around her. The weapon slammed into Elisia’s chest plate and knocked the Twi’lek off of her feet. “Oh, you brutal woman, Mars!” Elisia cried out with a grin stretching across her face, and Mars reached down to help her up.

“Brutal is an understatement,” Scoria said, her arms crossed, “Don’t use that move foolishly, though. It can be to your detriment. Get back into position, Mars.”

She nodded, and poised herself to strike. Scoria gestured for the Twi’lek to hand over the blade, and she obeyed. Scoria positioned herself in front of Mars. “You’re utilizing one of the most powerful strokes, but if you don’t have the right amount of space between you and your opponent, they can attack right where you’re most vulnerable. Try it again.”

With both hands and as much strength as she could manage, Mars lifted the blade and swung to strike. Her legs pulling her in a single motion that drove her forward. That is, until an unwavering force rammed into her chest. Mars was suddenly staring up at the sky, gasping for air. Scoria grabbed her arm and yanked her upright.

“I think _you’re_ the brutal woman, Scoria!” Mara teased.

The Madam dropped her blade. It clattered loud against the cement. She didn’t laugh as she normally did when faced with a joke at her expense. She was a serious woman who didn’t take _herself_ seriously. But now, now she was stared down at her hands like they were weapons. Her dark eyes glazed over; something behind them was more captivating than what lay in front of her. It was silent for a long while, Scoria’s chest expanded with every pained breath she took. In the entire five years the Madam had been there, she had never looked so fragile. “We’re done for the day,” she muttered, pushing passed Mars and barreling through the workers. She disappeared altogether.

Viv caught Mars’ eye, and gave her a look. _What the hell is going on?_ She didn’t even slow to give him an update before chasing after the Madam, following her footsteps down into the stairwell that lead back into the top floor of the Brothel. “Mars?” Viv called out from behind her, his voice bounced along the walls. “What’s going on?”

Her legs didn’t come to a stop until she was outside of Scoria’s suite door. Her mind was racing with everything that she could have said that wouldn’t have sent the Madam spiraling into her suite. Viv slid to her side. “I made a joke, but I upset her…I didn’t think it was _that_ bad, but…” Mars stared at the door, willing herself to turn the knob.

The moment she did, the room opened up; empty. The curtains were drawn, trapping darkness inside the space. Light might as well have not existed at all here. A vase was shattered across the wooden floors, bits of glass sprinkled across the hallway. One of the picture frames was cracked in half, hanging off the wall in two destroyed pieces that swung; shuttering from the commotion of recent destruction until they both gave in to gravity and crashed into pieces on the ground.“What did you _say_ to her?” Viv whispered, in awe, stepping over the debris.

She was a dark silhouetted figure hunched over a bottle. One of the curtains was torn down, its rod hung sideways. Beams of grey light shone through the spaces, illuminating the Madam’s hands as they shakily lifted a glass to her lips. She was muttering something to herself. How was this the same woman who had been on the roof, giving level-headed direction, just minutes before?

Scoria glanced over at the pair, raising her drink. Tears stained her cheeks, and her eyes were so wide that Mars could see the entirety of her fully dilated pupils. “Cheers to ten years! A decade!” She said maniacally, taking a large sip before she darkened, “It happened around this time, you know.”

Mars and Viv stood by her side. Mars reached out to touch her, but Scoria flinched. She shook her head quickly. “Don’t. Don’t _do_ that.”

“I’m so sorry, Scoria. I shouldn’t have said what I did, I had no idea…” Mars trailed off, searching for the perfect words to say, words that would bring their Scoria back. Because while this woman looked like the Madam, spoke like her, held a drink like her, this was not the Madam. This was a doppelgänger. A clone. Someone who Mars had never met before.

“No, no, _no_!” Scoria howled, “You spoke the truth, dear Mars. Because I killed them. I killed them all, and they screamed. You know what I’m talking about. The way dying- _dying_ people do. Ten whole years, and it’s like they’re still—they’re still screaming!” She hurled the glass across the room and it disintegrated against the wall of her kitchen. Mara and Viv both jumped from the sound. Pressing her fist into her forehead, Scoria shut her eyes tight like she was trying to keep the tears from spilling over again. Her breath escaping her lungs with agonizing force. 

Viv was choking back tears, and Mars fought desperately to keep hers from escaping as well. But they were getting all bunched up in her throat and she worried, like a weak dam, her will would be crushed by the sheer weight of it all. Scoria was the strongest of them, she was the spine of the brothel, and she was the spark of hope that kept the workers fighting; Mars tried to remember that as she watched the Madam now, crumbling against her bar, mumbling incoherently to herself. Certain parts of Scoria’s past in the Empire had always been shrouded in mystery. There were bits of her life that she kept sheltered from the light and hidden in the corners of her mind. Five years, and the Madam hardly spoke of the outcomes of her rank. And Mars drew back the curtains, so Scoria tore them all down.

“Scoria, you’re safe now,” Mars whispered, her voice cracked—the dam bursting open, “It doesn’t matter what you did. Now, you’re the best of us, you’re _good._ ”

“I’m not good, you foolish girl! Alyx Treswick knows who I am. Alyx Treswick knows what I did. I-I-I…” The sentence faded into harsh cries that shook the Madam to her core.

Scoria’s hands tangled in her hair and Mars’ tears to finally fell for her Madam. Viv pulled the two women into his arms, ignoring the way Scoria fought against him until she gave up and twisted around to grab ahold of Mars with so much force that for a moment, she thought the Madam would crumble into pieces without something to hold onto. She sobbed loudly, breathlessly into Mars’ shoulder. She begged for mercy from a woman who hadn’t existed for ten years.

—

Tanian vanished quickly. So quickly, that when his heart was torn open and cauterized by the hit of a blaster, Mara hadn’t even noticed it. She had been locked onto his eyes. When they lost their light, one of them went off center from the other like something else in the distance caught its attention. And she stared dumbly at him and imagined that his response to Quinn’s question must have been horrifying if it were to match his reaction. She didn’t see the smoke, or the hole in his chest, or the squad of Storm Troopers until Tanian’s body hit the ground.

A frenzy exploded in the room. The Storm Troopers obviously hadn’t expected to drop into a room of women who were ready for battle, because the moment they crossed into the room, they were met with the fighters Mara had been sparring with for the last twelve days. Quinn launched over the counter, driving a knife into the dark space below the ridge of a dusty white helmet. Kai, all muscle and power, scooped up an unsuspecting trooper in his arms, snapping his back with a sickening crack. Mara, simultaneously without any thought at all, reached for the blaster in the Mandalorian’s holster. Instead, the weapon was already being shoved into her hands. In one motion, she grabbed it and began shooting, taking aim on any storm trooper that raised a blaster to her fighters. Her finger presses back on the trigger; the blaster lit up, kicked, and the body dropped.

A hand grabbed Mara by the back of her collar and pulled so hard that oxygen forced itself out of her throat. She twisted herself out of its grip, sure that she was about to come face to face with the dark stare of a Storm Trooper’s helmet, but found the Mandalorian’s visor. He dragged her behind him and loaded his rifle like it was a mere extension of his armor. Storm troopers started to take aim on him as he did, and Mara ensured they didn’t even have time to let their finger even hover above the trigger of their blasters. Mando fired, and a storm trooper that had knocked Quinn onto their back exploded into dust _._ The burning embers of what was once a man fluttered to the ground.

It was a push and pull; waves in the most violent ocean in the galaxy. The pull, the retreating current; Xena kicking in a knee, Serra being yanked toward the stairwell, Mara’s fighters twisting the weapons out of imperial hands. The push, the swell of water crashing onto the shore; Mara aiming at a soldier with a broken leg and watching him collapse into a pile of armor on the floor, Serra’s captor disintegrating, storm troopers realizing their weapons were being turned against them before their world turned black.

Blaster bolts sparked off of the Mandalorian’s beskar, and Mara turned to find the Storm Trooper who fired the shots. He was calling out to the last three who were standing, “The asset isn’t here! We need to find the ship! _Get out!_ ”

Before Mara could register the command, a grappling hook shot out, lightning quick, and wrapped around the trooper. The Mandalorian pulled so hard on the cord that their helmets nearly collided. Red streaked against aged, yellowing armor, and the Storm Trooper died choking. The Mandalorian returned to turning another into ashes. The particles had hardly settled on the floor when the sounds of screams and weaponry was replaced by the eeriness of silence and women trying to catch their breath.

Floating in a thick daze, Mara’s heart was beating out of her chest. Her ears were stuffed with cotton as the remnants of battle rang through them. She slid the blaster into the Mandalorian’s holster before Quinn returned to her side. Mara caught them in her arms as they blinked back tears. “The _Empire_ …what is the Empire doing attacking us? They’re _gone._ They’re supposed to be gone.” They whispered, clearly just as stupefied as everyone in the room. Everyone, except a single figure, encased in beskar.

Kai pushed by the Mandalorian to help Serra up to her feet. She wobbled as she gained her balance. He was practically carrying two other women into what used to be his medical bay. The glass that once surrounded his work space was now shattered, glittering shards were scattered across the ground and crunched under his large feet. Slowly, like they were walking back into their own battle, Quinn rounded the counter, kneeling beside Tanian’s body. The Mandalorian’s hand latched onto Mara’s arm with a steel grip, “Razor Crest. _Now.”_ He snarled.

Mara didn’t make any attempt to hide her anger. She scowled at him and aggressively shook off his grip, “You’re kidding? I’m _not_ leaving now!”

“If you’re coming with me, you are!” The Mandalorian growled.

“Then _leave!_ I’ll find another way to Bespin, but I’m not—” She could feel her heart rising in her throat, the panic of the battle just beginning to settle underneath her skin. But the Mandalorian heeded her words, waving her off with a grunt of sheer frustration.

“No, Mara, you need to go,” Quinn interrupted, wiping a few tears away as they pulled a holoprojector out of Tanian’s pocket. Their voice shook nearly as much as their hands. They pressed the cold, metallic device into Mara’s grasp.

She shook her head. The child within her started trembling, trying not to cry. “No, I can’t. Quinn…I can’t leave you after all of that.”

Quinn grabbed her hands, steadying themself against her, “You have no choice! Tanian, the crazy man, was right. Something has changed. And if it’s the Empire…Lex needs back up _sooner_ rather than later. And I need to relocate the refuge,” Mara was quaking, trying desperately to slow down her mind and soothe the slow ache that was beginning to expand in her chest. “Listen to me, Mara! I’ll be in touch as soon as we’re safe, but you need to find Lex. The coordinates to our fortress are in the holoprojector, do you understand?”

Mara nodded rapidly, and pulled Quinn close. Their arms wrapped tightly around her, practically holding her up, and they whispered, “We lost Tanian, but we won today, okay? And we need to ensure that we win tomorrow too. Now, _go_!” They turned her around swiftly, pushing her toward the door.

She took a look around the room, scanning through what had once been a beacon of hope, of good, a place to safely embrace those who escaped chains. And it now lay in tatters. Shattered glass and Storm Troopers scattered across the floor while Kai healed the women who had endured their wake. And then her legs drew her up the stairs and out into the street.

Outside of the teashop, where the sky had full view, the life of the town carried on as if chaos hadn’t just erupted below the feet of everyone walking down the street. Mara weaved breathlessly through the storekeepers and the grocers beginning to start their day of sales. They laid out their products totally unaware that the Empire, or some part of the Empire, was able to endure, able to attack, able to drive a hammer through a revolution once again.

The hatch of the Razor Crest was roaring open, crashing into the grass with an eruption of loose dirt when Mara slid next to the Mandalorian. He didn’t even acknowledge her, or maybe he didn’t even notice her because as soon as he could, he was barreling up the ramp. Mara watched as he scoped out the ship, like an unseen enemy was hidden in its corners. Paranoia and entitlement were usually excusable, but something about the Mandalorian turning the attack in the Brothel into something that could have possibly revolved around him, made Mara prickle up with annoyance. Who did he think _he_ was?

Once he was confident they were alone, the Mandalorian opened the sleeping quarters where the small child was hanging in his hammock. Upon seeing gigantic brown eyes staring up at him, the Mandalorian’s shoulders slumped. He gently laid a gloved hand on the small green head. And actively trying to regain steady breath, the Warrior looked like he was about to crumble.

The heat rising in Mara’s throat dissipated.

The Mandalorian held his foundling close, and lifted himself into the cockpit. The memory of his anger toward Mara’s Imperial Madam appeared in the forefront of her mind. Mara pressed the button to close the hatch, and climbed up the ladder to drop down in the co-pilot’s seat. “What’s going on, Mando?” She whispered, before finding her voice again, “The Empire is supposed to be gone…but you know something. What is it?”

Engines roared. The ship swayed deeply as it lifted off of the ground, and the Mandalorian glanced back at her. “It’s the kid. I picked him up as a bounty for a client who turned out to be Moff Gideon. I didn’t follow up on my end of the bargain. There was a fallout. Gideon died. Or at least I think he died. That should have been the end of it.”

Mara leaned back against the seat. She raced through the entire morning, the entire hellish morning that left her actively wanting to let the Empty suck her into the dark room where she could watch her life from behind a pane of glass. Where she could be safe. For the first time. “The Storm Trooper,” Mara realized, “The one you killed after he made a command about getting some—”

“ _Asset_ ,” Mando finished, enunciating each syllable of the word like they tasted bitter. “Maybe someone picked up where Gideon left off. The kid could have been spotted.”

The next moment, Mara was standing, she wasn’t entirely sure why she stood because she immediately had to brace herself on the chair. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”She choked out.

“Because it was supposed to be over, and you weren’t supposed to be part of a Rebellion against crime syndicates,” He said it so calmly, like the Empire’s resurgence and appearance in the refuge didn’t make the ground feel like it would fall away in an instant and without warning.

“So I lead Storm Troopers straight to the refuge. And then Tanian died. If those women fell into Imperial hands…they might as well have been dragged off in chains. You should have _told me_ ,” Mara cried out, pacing across the cockpit. She could get no more than about three steps across each way, but it was the only thing she could think to do. Air escaped her grasp with every passing moment, it curled out of her mouth and swirled around her finger tips in mockery. _You can’t catch me._

“I thought _you_ were tied to the Empire. And we don’t know if you lead them anywhere. Those women are fighters, they wouldn’t have been dragged off in chains even if we weren’t there,” he stated as he pushed a lever forward, “Now hold on.”

The ship jolted violently, and Mara with it. And the stars combined into bright, streaming ribbons that reflected across every metallic surface in the cockpit. The first time the light show of hyperspace expanded in front of her, she had been hypnotized. But now, every beam of light was breaking through the glass and tunneling under her skin; each stream swimming through her bloodstream was a new and harrowing possibility that presented all the ways she put her own kind at risk. Like she had with Viv.

Like she had with Viv. Mara pressed her fingers against her eyes, trying not to concentrate on the last moment she saw friendly brown eyes covered in shaggy dark hair. “The syndicates are getting more resources than they’ve had since the New Republic came to power. Are we sure this was _just_ about your foundling?” Mara asked, staring at her feet.

In all honesty, Mara hoped he’d say, “Yes,” hoped to hear someone, even a man who’s name she didn’t know and who’s face she’d never see, say “It will be okay,” and mean it. Because right now, she just wanted to feel a sturdy, firm foundation beneath her feet.

The Mandalorian didn’t say either of the answers Mara desperately hoped for. The helmet tilted downward, and he quietly said, “I don’t know, but whether we like it or not, we’re going to find out.”


	9. Aftertaste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Poe Dameron voice* Somehow, Cara Dune has been recast and is played by Dani Fernandez.
> 
> TW: Abuse, comments revolving around noncon

_1 Month Before the Escape:_

The man who had been carved out of a lost claw of rebellion was sprawled out, motionless, on the roof. His profile was washed pitch black against the lights of the city, and for a moment, as she heaved herself off of the ladder, Mars wondered if he was asleep. She wasn’t used to seeing him so still. If he ventured to watch the city transform, he was usually dangling his feet off of the edge to feel the wind catch underneath him, or leaning against the chimneys. Viv was never still.

Mars sat cross legged next to him. He looked like he was a body in camouflage. Eyes may have been closed, muscles relaxed, hands entwined behind his head, and his knees propped up, but his brow was furrowed. Viv was fine glass work—hardened, beautiful, but incredibly fragile. And sometimes glass cracked.

“You’re staring.” Viv said with a compulsory smirk. His eyes opened slightly.

“I am!” Mars replied, laying back next to him and looping her arm through his. “Let’s talk about why we’re up here. I’ll go first. Destrie threatened to retire me today, all because I kicked one of his friends in the jaw when he tried to cuff me. I guess Destrie told him I’d be okay with playing into some fantasy he had. I probably over compensated though, he was out cold in one kick. I almost impressed myself. You should have seen it.”

Briefly, when Destrie’s friend had enclosed her wrist in the binders, Mars’ bones hardened. And the crystallization spread like an infection; encasing her entire body and freezing her in dense metal. Until she felt how her wrists rubbed raw against the metal of the cuffs. Her skin wasn’t hard and rigid. It was soft, it could break. And so, it could adapt.

Mars tried to keep the darkness out of her tone though, like the entire scenario didn’t send shudders down her spine. Viv always seemed so happy to talk about any misfortune that befell Overlords and their confidants. Sometimes, she hoped, the stories could keep him in tact.

“Now,” Mars said running her thumb across the bacta ointment that she’d applied to her wrists from the dig of metal, “What’s eating you?”

The air thinned around them. Viv sat up, his dark hair falling over his forehead. “I found a way. Jora paid to take me to Canto Bight,” he whispered.

“Jora, like Jora Olo?” Mars let the name dissolve into her tongue, “Are you kidding me, Viv? He’s—”

“Giving us an opportunity to get ahold of a ship, credits, and path straight to Scoria.”

She pulled away from him and scoffed. Jora was a gambler. And a good one at that. The only thing hotter than his winning streaks, was his temper. He was wanted by the New Republic for practically burning a casino to the ground after a brawl with a few of his regular gambling buddies. Mars and Viv hadn’t known that until Scoria came around and began screening clients. But when she left, so did the practice. And once the Overlord’s returned, so did Jora. The gambler had a type, though. And Viv didn’t seem to fit his mold.

“Isn’t he usually…more Twi’lek-focused?” Mars said, knowing that this was a fact Viv was all too aware of, “No way. He’s too high-risk.”

He nodded, “High reward, though.”

“And you’re—” She started to say.

“I’m terrified.” He interrupted, a blaze catching behind his eyes. “And I’m—I’m _so_ angry!”

Sometimes Mars forgot the price of Viv’s ability to gracefully navigate through his small acts of Rebellion. Mars always, no matter the situation, found herself stumbling, not knowing the best way to weave her agenda into the fabric of an intricately weaved plan. But it just took Viv a single conversation. A single moment. It was like watching him sprint across a beam when it’d be wiser to carefully watch each step. But no matter how hard he ran, how quickly he dodged and maneuvered around obstacles; Reality had a way of catching up. And when it did, the glass would begin to crack.

“We don’t have to do this.” Mars whispered.

Viv buried his face in his hands. His rings shined with purple lights flashing in from the skyline. “That’s the problem, we _do_. We have to do this, no matter how badly we don’t want to! I'm so mad that it has to be us! I’m angry at Scoria for getting taken! At the New Republic for leaving us behind! I’m _exhausted_.” He shouted through gritted teeth and tears.

Mars knew anger. She didn’t feel it in waves as Viv did. She didn’t wait for the glass around her to crack. The stuff constantly simmered in her veins. Scoria had tried to utilize it, tried to tell her how to channel it into a defense move. Or her work. But there was no cure, no mechanism to project her anger onto. Mars always worried she was just made from red hot fury. So Viv didn’t find it surprising when she jumped to her feet.  
  
“No.” Viv sniffed back his tears, “Not right now.”

“Right now. Up.”

Viv spread his arms out wide, and flopped back onto he ground. “You’re weird coping mechanisms won’t work for this.”

“Weird?” Mars gasped, clutching an imaginary necklace like she was a Naboo Lady who’d been scorned.

“Yes. Weird. Leave me alone!” He groaned into his hands.

She grabbed Viv’s arms and lifted him to his feet. He dramatically slumped down, putting all of his dead weight against her. After several moments of them laughing at each other’s dramatics. Viv finally gave in to her. He straightened and they both faced the gemstone skyline.

“Look out there, Viv.” Mars said, standing up on the ledge to let her toes hang just over the edge. “Think of…how unfair this is.”  
  
“How trapped I feel.” Viv whispered. “How… _fucking_ _tired_ I am.”

“How I am so scared.” She shut her eyes, and they both inhaled as much air as their lungs could hold.

And they screamed. They screamed so loud that it crashed through their chest as it barreled out of their mouths and into the washed out sky. They screamed so loud that it rang in their ears and dulled the ache in their bones.

The city drank it all up. Deafening to them, but the sounds of life rumbling through the streets and ships roaring through the sky overpowered their shouts entirely. But they still screamed until the burdens they hauled felt a little lighter, and their voices gave out. Viv breathed for the first time since Mars stepped foot on the roof. “Okay, your weird coping mechanism may have worked again.” He croaked, as they both laughed at the ridiculousness of the entire routine.

“We don’t have to do this.” Mars repeated, watching beings stumble across the street below.

“Don’t look down.” Viv scolded, “We have to do this.”

It’d be smart to carefully watch their steps as they crossed this beam, and she knew that.

But the feeling of cuffs biting into her skin was still too fresh. The aftertaste of Choice and Freedom still lingered in their mouths. Bacta could heal skin, regrow nerves, and fuse broken bones, but there were some scars that it could not reach. Screaming into the city could fill an empty chest, catapult the pain out into the night air, and momentarily bring laughter, but it could not take the ache away. Not completely.

So Mars and Viv began to sprint.

—

“Is this a joke, Mando?”

“No.”

“I’m going to give you another chance to answer that question.”

“Your friend is being held hostage at a crime syndicate, and you’re wasting time arguing. You realize that, right?” Mando replied, handing Mara the child.

She looked at him the same way she looked at the Imps in the refuge; soaked in blazing furyand ready to burn everything down. “I’m wasting time?” Mara growled. “This wouldn’t even be an issue if—”

Whatever she was saying fell away because, well, honestly, he stopped listening. The Mandalorian expected push back. She’d spent nearly the entire flight to Nevarro pacing in the hull of the ship, her restlessness bounced off of the walls and up into the cockpit. Even the child looked up at him with confused eyes when it was far passed the time for any person to be sleeping and the slow tap of her shoes against the ground started up again. The integrity of the floor was at risk; any longer and her footsteps may end up carving their path right into the metal. After a while, they landed her right back where she started—in the co-pilot’s chair.

He knew that she was doing all she could to keep her mind occupied. Anticipation was mocking and taunting her; nipping at her fingertips and swirling through her ankles to trip her up. But her impatience wasn’t the Mandalorian’s problem. The foundling was his problem. “Last time I was here, Imps were everywhere. I need you to stay with him, where he’s safe,” Mando commanded, “I won’t be long.”

Mara slid into his path, and the child laughed from the speed of the motion. “I’ve already held up my end of our deal! I’m off kid duty!” She protested, “We’re better as a team.” 

There was no rebuttal he could pose. Mara was technically right, but, admittedly, he wasn’t worried about Imps. He was worried about the explanation he’d be asked to give. The woman’s mere presence would inspire questions. And if _Cara_ saw her? If she knew he was giving passage to a prostitute in search of an ex-Imperial Admiral? It was easier to keep Mara on the ship. For her own sake.

Get in. Get credits. Warn Karga and Cara. Get out.

So the Mandalorian sighed in resignation; generously allowing her to have a single moment of perceived victory as he began shuffling through his tools.

“Fine. You can come, but you’re going in armed,” He said just as his knuckles scraped against something hard, metal and round.

Mara lifted her hand to reach toward a blaster, and Mando snatched her wrist in between the binders. Before she could even cry out in protest, he snapped the other cuff onto the exposed piping that lined the side of the walls. It was a swift motion that had become second nature after years of hunting slippery bail jumpers and con-men. The child, still in her arms, clapped his hands together in amusement.

She did not accost him as he expected though. Her eyes were too focused on her enclosed wrist, and she jangled it against the pipe, slowly switching her grip on the child. She was so gentle with the movement, that it almost seemed like she wasn’t even angry. Like she had surrendered. Mando nodded. He was relieved at how suddenly she had become agreeable, and he turned on the ball of his foot to leave. But her hand wrapped tight around the top ridge of his chest plate, jerking him back to face her. And not just face her, she pulled him in close— _terribly close._ Amber eyes darkened, and her voice was much lower than he anticipated. “You want to hear what happened to the last man who cuffed me?”

The Mandalorian actively ignored the heat rising in his stomach and grabbed Mara firmly by the forearm. “ _Stay,”_ he growled, tearing her grip away from his armor and pushing off of her to set distance between them again.

Binders rang against the pipe as they were shaken violently. Mara scoffed dramatically, “I hope those ‘Imps’ you’re _so_ worried about don’t turn up now! You’re foundling and I are basically standing targets.”

Mando rolled his eyes and turned his attention to the child, “Keep her straight.”

The kid blinked up at him, and promptly shifted his giant eyes to stare up at her. Mando smiled. Mara erupted; quaking and trembling as she did. Her voice spilled out of her throat like lava finally meeting the atmosphere; deep tremors forcing out red hot magma. “If there wasn’t a kid around, I swear would—”

The carbonate plaques dislodging from their cells drowned out her explosion. The ship wailed open, and metal cried over her curses. As he walked into the barren town with the carbonate statues humming alongside him, Mando almost felt bad for cuffing the woman. Her reaction, however, certainly didn’t seem to fit his action; something snapped when the metal came down across her wrist. He wondered briefly what happened to the other man.

A messy strip of black splotches splattered across the stone of the cantina; dark scars from a heavy repeating blaster. The remnants of the burns jerked the Mandalorian away from the mad woman cuffedin his ship.

Colors never really held any significance. Up until the Mandalorian turned the kid over to the client, colors couldn’t really bring anything of use; solace, protection, survival. They merely existed in the galaxy alongside every other random cosmic mistake that sprouted out of star dust. But that wasn’t quite true anymore. Because despite everything, all of the humanity that had been trained out of him; black felt like fear; red like loss; blue was an outstretched hand reaching into a cellar. And a glimpse of green could be absolutely debilitating.

“Mando!” Greef Karga pushed off of the bar as soon as the Mandalorian crossed over the threshold into the cantina, and waved off a couple of bounty hunters who were buzzing around him, “I’m glad you reconsidered my offer. Sit! Let’s catch up, old friend!”

He refused the offer, but shook the man’s hand. “Karga. Where’s your newest hunter? I thought she’d be here.”

Karga swallowed the last of his beverage and tapped on the rim of the glass for a refill. “I’m not sure, she’s probably dragging in a warlord. She might be your top competitor, you know. But don’t worry about her. Where’s the little guy? I hoped to see him again!”

The bartending droid handed a new drink to Karga. It’d be easier to get this part over with, the Mandalorian figured. “He’s safe. We had a run in with Imps looking for him on Dantooine, though.”

The Mandalorian watched Karga’s staple, easy going, bravado melt away. And he was back to being who he truly was; a cautious, calculating man who, when staring down the barrel of a blaster, tightly wrung his hands together and snapped at anyone within ear shot. Before their encounter with the Moff, the Mandalorian would have summed the Guild Agent up as having motivations that were centered around his own interests; easily swaying his allegiances if he’d be the primary beneficiary. But, as it has seemed to go recently, that had proven to be a poor assessment of the man. He looked concerned, and genuinely so.

“Is someone replacing Gideon?” he asked, raising his hand over his chest as the implications of his question sank in.

“I don’t know, but we’re going to lay low for a while. I need to focus on the founding.”

Karga, absently nodding, slid a pouch of credits across the bar. The bound leather carried enough weight to get him to Bespin, and beyond. “You do what you have to. We’re here if you need any assistance.”

He said his goodbyes to Karga and walked out of the cantina toward the Crest. As he strolled down the scarred and battered streets, the Mandalorian decided that Nevarro was better off forgotten. He spent the majority of his life encased in armor, which is to say that once, in a time that felt so long ago, he knew how to evade pain. How to protect himself from it. How to ensure it did not linger. But, like his recent hyperawareness of colors and their grabbing limbs that dragged him back in time—that wasn’t quite true anymore either. A pile of beskar and the corpse of a Ugnaught still weighed heavy in the pit of the Mandalorian’s gut. The Armorer had been right. He told himself this daily; the Tribe knew the risk of exposing itself and Kuiil understood the same.

But Guilt is a greedy and ravenous beast. Guilt didn’t care about circumstance or duty or honor.

Guilt _ate._

Guilt consumed. Digested.

The constant simmering dread of succumbing to Guilt could eat him alive. So he shoved it away; constantly heaving it back and locking it up the crowded cells of his mind in order to charge forward. Do the next job. Because, in the end, the Tribe exposed itself and Kuiil died for the foundling, and those sacrifices had to be worth something. Anything.

That’s where he kept all the things that were better off forgotten; locked up. He’d never confess to the existence of the cells. If anyone asked, not that they would, it’d be too easy to claim that the cells didn’t exist. They weren’t full of people, final moments, explosions, battle droids, or Guilt. They didn’t rile and ridicule and remind him of who he actually was when a woman with gentle brown eyes and an even gentler touch asked for too much or when the child first looked up like he was searching for a father underneath beskar. They didn’t only settle into peace when he was where they knew he belonged; charging forward. Doing the next job.

They weren’t there at all. His mind was quiet.

This was all a lie, of course; a lie he’d expertly constructed for himself with the same care and specificity as his prison. But even with all that work, all that time and attention to detail to ensure they’d be inescapable, the cells still weren’t soundproof. They were loud and shouted and demanded attention. Protecting a small sorcerer, and heat and fire engulfing him in order to ensure that happened, had forced the cells to finally fall silent. But only for the child. Only for his foundling.

A familiar silhouette was propped against his ship as soon as it came into sight. She was all muscle and intensity, leaning against the Crest with her hand resting on her blaster. She brought with her a messy cocktail of relief and dread. As soon as she looked up, she spoke. “Now I know you weren’t going to come back here and leave without saying anything!”

Mando shook his head, “Wouldn’t dare consider it. I told Karga to tell you I’d be back. I just left him in the cantina.”

Cara rolled her eyes, and she smirked as she always did. There was always something reassuring in her presence—how no matter what, no matter the challenge or the enemy, she’d be there with her intense glare and ironclad will power. “What else is new?”

“I hear you’ve impressed the Guild.”

“It’s not hard to impress them, but that's not news to you, huh?”

He inclined his helmet knowingly, “You won’t have me as competition anymore either, so now no one will be there to make you look bad.”

She rolled her head back and groaned in mocking exhaustion, “Didn’t you already try this before?” He knew she wouldn’t believe him after he’d gone back to Karga for a few odd jobs, but she didn’t linger with her doubt long. “Where’s your kid anyway?”

Mando focused on the hatch of the Crest, willing himself to come up with an adequate reason to keep it closed. There was the issue that he technically cuffed a seemingly innocent woman to a pipe in his ship. But that hardly crossed his mind. Cara was a friend, but in her eyes, by mere connection, Mara would be Imperial. And Cara’s prejudice didn’t come from circumstances as his did; her’s was firmly rooted into bedrock.

“You left him in the ship!” Cara cried out, filling in the unanswered question that he left floating in the air, “You have got to stop leaving him in the ship alone, Mando!”

With a deep sigh, Mando began disarming the security protocol. The ship’s door dropped, and Cara pushed passed him and in a few long strides she disappeared into the hull. Beskar might as well have been forged with Neuranium. Each step a little heavier than the last as he heard Cara’s voice bounce off of the metallic walls. “You see?” Mando said as he turned to find Cara holding up the child in front of her with a wide grin spread across her face, “He wasn’t alone…”

When the words slid out of the modulator, Mando saw the empty cuffs dangling from the pipe. Before the absence of the mad woman even registered, something behind him, dripping with venom, said, “Eyes up, Buckethead!”

Her name hardly had time to leave his mouth before he was swallowed up and vibrating with a harsh shrill; shooting straight down from the back of his head down to his spine. Singing. Singing _horribly._ His helmet was screaming, ringing, howling like the beskar itself was brought to life only to slowly be pulled apart by its fibers. The force that caused the pained cries jolted the Mandalorian forward. He caught himself against the wall, slamming his fist into the auditory sensor to stop it from trilling sharply in his ears from the blow.

Cara, eyes widening and her battle-worn instincts kicking in, lifted her blaster and the Mandalorian raised his hands toward her. “It’s okay! Don’t shoot!” He shouted, and flaming amber filled the visor.

Still able to navigate his surroundings regardless of the bells ringing around his skull, he caught the loose metal pipe in Mara’s grasp before she could swing again.The damn woman was fast though; she fought against him, and he defended himself in earnest. The dizzy static buzzing in the Mandalorian’s head was just the right amount of distraction she needed though. He didn’t notice her ankle wrapping around his until he was already losing his balance. With a _smack_ that reverberated through the ship, the Mandalorian was on his back; his head ringing violently, trying to become reacquainted with oxygen and his pride, and staring up at a wild, volcanic woman.

A foot came down against his breast plate the moment the Mandalorian tried to prop himself up. Mara dropped low, crouching above him. Her eyes burned holes through his helmet. The jolt from the fall and the residual resonant clang of metal against metal left his head foggy. But he heard Mara, clear and even, when she whispered through clenched teeth, “Don’t _cuff me_ again.”

Just for him.


	10. Honor in Survival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Talk of violence, human trafficking, past abuse, past trauma

_10 Years Before the Escape:_

Clouds chased off the sun, and in its absence, a thunderous storm overtook the skies. Rain drummed heavy against the windows. Mars leaned against the arm of Scoria’s sofa and watched the dark clouds slide across the atmosphere. When she was a just a girl and still equipped with a child’s imagination, the drops of water would race down the panes of glass. The competition was cut throat, and despite the low stakes, it wasn’t victimless. If one of the droplets didn’t run fast enough, a competitor could absorb it from behind. The added energy could make the difference between victory and defeat.

There was no playful tournament playing out on the windows today. There was only the roaring tears of the sky as it mourned the loss of the sun. Scoria was in every drop; how angrily they could fall, how they could slam into rock and erode hard stone into any shape they pleased, how they could flood streets and tear the foundations of buildings out of their studs.

Much to the Madam’s chagrin, Viv and Mars refused to leave her side. Even when her thunder settled, the friends were there. Quiet. But there nonetheless.

Viv fixed the curtains. Mars swept the glass off of the tile floor. Scoria washed away the streaks of dark make up that the tears melted down her cheeks. Once her skin was clean, she fell onto the bed to stare at the ceiling until she settled back into her body. And when the suite was brought to its former glory, and Scoria padded out of her room, the trio sat on the giant sofas, wordlessly drinking tea that Mars had brewed. They watched the sky bawl. And howl. And slam.

“I’m sorry for my ridiculous meltdown. You didn’t have to stay.” Scoria said, staring into her cup.

Viv shook his head. “We didn’t have to, but we wanted to.”  
  
“And there’s no such thing as a ridiculous meltdown. Sometimes you need a good scream.” Mars said offering a comforting smile.

Nights where the city ate up their cries and Mars and Viv heaved with sore chests fluttered out of the sentence and caught Viv’s eye. He huffed out a breath of amused air. “We’ve gotten _good_ at screaming too with the amount of times we’ve lost it.”

“You’re one of us now, Madame Scoria Karaay,” Mars said with an absurdly earnest, formal nod, “This was your initiation.”

Finally, a smile cracked through Scoria’s hardened exterior. She took a deep breath. “Alyx Treswick was an Imperial informant on Axum.”

Viv and Mars both held their breath. They prepared themselves for another explosion, but that fear fell away as they realized Scoria held her tea with a steady hand, and her words came out soft and even. “Axum was loyal to the Empire,” Scoria said, “But there was an unrest stirring. My superior, Moff Azafar, assigned me to go in and occupy the core city; get it back under our control. I’m sure it was much different during the Civil War, but being a Fleet Admiral was easy back then; survive and keep the Moff happy. That was it.”

“I was hands-on. Too much so. Some of my men weren’t qualified to go undercover. And I needed to know where the insurgence stemmed from. By sheer, dumb luck, I stumbled upon Alyx Treswick.” Scoria set the tea cup down and sat up straight like she had to stand at attention in order for the words to grace her presence.

“She was a true neutral. Her people were her only concern. Empire, Old Republic, none of it mattered to her.”

“Her people?” Mars asked. “Who was she?”

Scoria watched the dark sky swirl, seeming to lose herself in the slow movement of the wind dragging the clouds through the atmosphere. “She was…an abbess. Of a monastery. A very religious woman. The rebels congregated at her temple.”

Viv’s eyes narrowed in a way that made the hairs on the back of Mars’ neck stand up in defense, and he stared at Scoria over the ridge of his cup. She didn’t seem to notice, “I gave her my word; the Empire would stop the unrest, and her monastery would be left alone. It was supposed to be _easy_.”

“It’s hard not getting attached to people. And Alyx was—” Scoria sighed, “She was a friend when I had no one. The Empire was holding me under water. She pulled me out and I could breathe again. Alyx gave me a chance to look at what I was doing. _Really_ doing. But I couldn’t face it.”

Thunder roared, low and resonant, and a crack of lightning flashed across the grey sky. “We were able to stop countless riots thanks to Alyx, but the constant battles fueled the rebels. Alyx got word that they were planning a larger attack, a real one, not just a riot or a firefight in the streets. So when the day came, we were ready for them.”

Tears started to well up in Scoria’s dark eyes, and she sniffed them away as Mars reached out and grabbed her hand. “Azafar had another plan though. ‘Blow it all to Hell.’” She scoffed, “Apparently, _anyone_ who fraternized with the rebels was a traitor by association. So, I-I followed orders.”

Scoria let go of Mars’ hand and wiped her tears away, “I followed orders to avoid the same fate as those poor women in the monastery. I knew how to survive. No matter the cost. There’s no honor in survival.” 

“I don’t know if I believe that,” Mara felt her heart tug at the thought of her Madam, the woman who had given her so much power, being anything other than honorable. “You have to survive here too, and you’ve risked a lot despite how dangerous—”

“Don’t idealize me, Mars. And don’t idealize yourself either.” Scoria’s eyes were dry now, her voice was so full and overawing that even Viv shrank into the sofa cushions, “Working here should have shown you that no one is made up of light or dark—those may exist for the Jedi, but not for us. Me, you, Viv, the rest of the damn galaxy…we are left hopelessly flailing in the chaos.”

—

Staring into the empty belly of the Crest, cuffed and trapped, sent Mara’s mind racing into a lost childhood; one that was better off forgotten until the sharp dig of metal on her wrists violently threw her right back into a dim smuggler’s ship. She had been too young to understand that there was something else in the galaxy other than cold chains and the dark, musty air of the vessel.

And then she was in a bedroom in the brothel long before Scoria had swept into Keyorin. One of her first clients had cuffed her to the headboard, blinded, and laughed at her panic. Mara left the encounter bruised, exposed, raw, and desperately pleading with the Overlord to let her _rest. For a moment._ “Watch your words. That’s one of our highest paying customers. A good man; he’s never received a complaint.” The callous confidence of the Overlord made Mara reevaluate the entire event; to second-guess everything she had felt, heard, remembered, and knew. She had been too young then to know that, more often than not, bad men looked a lot like good men.

For the first time in nearly a decade, Mara thought about that Good Man who wasn’t a good man. She was picking the lock to the cuffs, and like a wound she couldn’t stop touching, Destrie’s friend—the one who’s jaw she broke—wouldn’t leave her mind. Infinite knowledge could be gathered from the eyes. The warriors, the peace-keepers, the lovers, the heartbroken, the insatiable; their eyes gave them away. The face of Destrie's friend wasn’t clear anymore, but Mara knew his eyes. He had the same eyes as the Good Man. And when the cuffs clicked open, she was sure that if the Mandalorian lifted that helmet, she’d see them again.

Now, though, as she stared down into his visor, the red-hot talons of anger cooled. And as her tunneled vision widened, Mara realized there was someone else in the ship. Most of the woman’s face was concealed by the barrel of a blaster, but the child in her arms looked up at her like an old friend. “You can put the blaster down,” Mara said, lifting herself off of Mando’s chest plate, “I was only—”

“Proving a point,” Mando finished the sentence. His voice strained from the effort of sitting up.

“You can call me Mara.” She said, turning to the woman cloaked in ferocity.

She eyed Mara with careful examination, and dropped the blaster into her holster. “Cara Dune.” She responded plainly, catching a glimpse of the empty cuffs hanging on the pipe beside her and returning to the Mandalorian, “Did you have this woman chained up in your ship?”

Hoping to salvage any solidarity she could, Mara rapidly nodded. At the same time, though, Mando shook his head, “Sounds worse than it was.”

Mara scoffed, and took her time pacing around the warrior. Looking him over as he stood as still as a decommissioned droid. He was a statue. Except for his helmet, that rotated on its hinges and watched her intently. Mara ignored his stare, and ran a finger lightly across her bottom lip. She slipped her hands behind his cape and knocked against the beskar that lined his back.

“What are you doing?” He asked, the words cutting through the modulator.

She exhaled in frustration and turned toward Cara with a mockingly thoughtful look plastered across her face. “A broken neck. I’d have to settle for a broken neck. Strangulation could work, but I’ve never liked that option. Some people say it takes too long. I’ve always found it to be too _intimate_.”

Mando stepped into her line of vision, “I don’t know what you’re—”

“When I kill you.” She said, her shroud of friendly pensiveness muffling the threat.

She didn’t get anything from the Mandalorian other than an impatient sigh. Cara strode to his side. A wide and rakish smile stretched across her face. “I can’t say you wouldn’t deserve it.”

“Yeah, okay. Enough.” Mando grumbled.

Cara Dune was gripping. Her quiet intensity made that so, but she had the kind of devilish grin that if she smiled, it’d undoubtedly take up her whole face. Long, warm brown hair fell down her shoulders, one side was braided to her scalp to keep it out of her way. The sun made itself at home in her skin. Dark stripes wrapped around her bicep, and Mara found herself aching for a time when she had been drenched in velvet and delicately traced the lines of a similar tattoo on another equally captivating woman.

A bounty hunter as well, Cara harnessed the same stoicism as the Mandalorian. Only she carried the Empty behind the golden shine of her eyes; the confusing heavy weight of hollowness. Mara knew it well. So when Mando dove into the Storm Troopers who were searching for his foundling in the refuge, it was no surprise that an aura around Cara Dune rippled and warped the same way the streets on Keyorin did when the hot summer sun bore down on them. Heat so extreme that the eye could see it pulsing in the air. “I can handle Imps any day.” Cara said with such conviction that Mara believed her. “What were you doing at a _prostitution_ refuge anyway?”

Mara looked down at her hands, half expecting her skin to be covered in a thin layer of grime with the tone the question was coated in. “The refuge was for Workers who escaped the trafficking syndicates. They’re not called prostitutes.” Mara spoke up, this part of the story wasn’t the Mandalorian’s to tell.

“Slavery is outlawed now. If there’s a syndicate holding pros— _Workers—_ hostage, they should be reported to the New Republic.” Cara leaned back against the wall of the ship as if acting on her suggestion was as easy as saying it allowed.

“You don’t think the New Republic knows?” Mara asked, unable to stop the words from bursting out of her chest, “Even if a Brothel is run _well_ by _us—_ ” Cara stiffened at the word, realization turning her face red, “—those X-Wings are still all too happy to play hero and shut it down under the guise of putting an end to the syndicates while the rest of us are still out there actually in chains. But I think you already know that we don’t fit the qualifications for _government protection_.”

The air around Mara absorbed the heat in the ship now. Her heart pounded from the outburst, and foolishness spread through each mighty beat. The accusation wasn’t the work of an overactive imagination or conspiracy. There were countless nights when Mara and Viv watched Scoria as she redirected New Republic operatives away from the Brothel on Keyorin, begging them to turn their focus elsewhere, to other Brothels that were still under the control of Overlords and the traffickers they kept as company. Cara didn’t seem phased by the outburst. The Bounty Hunter actually raised one of her eyebrows in curiosity. “It sounds like there’s a role you’re playing in all of this.” She stated.

“Not really. But in exchange for watching the kid, Mando has to bring me to find my—” Mara began, but just behind Cara’s shoulder, the Mandalorian shook his helmet, subtly and with great intention. If her reaction to the Storm Troopers wasn’t enough, Cara’s tattoo might as well have been shouting her stance on anyone with Imperial involvement. _Better off dead._ “My own kind. We can’t count on the New Republic so we’re handling it ourselves.”

“You recruited a sex Worker and Revolutionary to watch your kid?” Cara asked the Mandalorian. He tilted his helmet toward her like he was rolling his eyes underneath all of that metal.

A single beat passed before Cara handed the child back to Mando. “Well, I’ve got places to be, and I’d hate to hold you up from the _mess_ you’re both in _._ Mara, I wish you and your rebellion well. I really do.”  
  
Mara sat back against the wall and nodded her goodbye, watching the two step into the light of the dusty planet. Part of a conversation not intended for her ear drifted into the ship. “Are you going to see the Armorer while you’re here?” Cara kept her voice low, but metal walls were an echo chamber.

“She relocated. There was nothing keeping her here after the Mandalorian Covert…was—” He sounded defeated in a way that seemed uncharacteristic.

“You know what she said. They knew what they were doing coming out in the open.” Cara’s quick, genuine reassurance fell flat. The Mandalorian let the conversation die. She sighed in defeat. “Thanks for the heads up on those Imps. I’m sure I’ll be hearing from you.”

By the time Mando returned to his cockpit and the white noise of hyperspace started to hum its dark melody, Mara realized there was something comforting about the view. The galaxy outstretched infinitely before her, and infinite possibilities lay within each star. All of the lights in her gemstone city couldn’t compare to the infinite colors that space presented through gaseous clouds and the rings of planets she couldn’t identify. Beauty and terror were entangled in new life; new booming, thriving life that had every capacity to fail or succeed depending on the random chaos the galaxy summoned.

“What happened to the Covert?” Mara decided not to think through what asking the question would result in, she was going to be gone soon. What harm could it possibly do to ask?

Silence. He didn’t turn away from stars. Mara tried again, ignoring her gut begging her to be quiet. “Sound carries in this ship, you know? You don’t have to say anything about it. I just thought—I don’t know what I thought actually.” _I just want to know._

“The Tribe revealed itself to protect me and the foundling, and Imperials wiped them out because of it.” The Mandalorian didn’t sound angry, but the words came out weighed down and slow—guilt?

Friendly brown eyes blinked, a hand ordained with silver rings swept back loose strands of black hair. Mara waved them off.

“Are you the only one left?” The sudden surge of honesty was jarring, and she was fueled by it.

“No, the Armorer is still alive. Others may have escaped.”

Mara worried the doors to the conversation were closing the farther into hyperspace they traveled. “I’m…so sorry,” She whispered. Despite the seething hatred she had for him when she was trapped on his ship, her heart split in two. She knew that sympathy wasn’t necessarily the best way to respond to the warrior, but she had meant it. “They did the honorable thing.”

“‘They did the honorable thing.’” He repeated it inquisitively, emphasizing each word.

“Do you not think there’s honor in sacrifice? Or in survival even?”

Mando’s helmet tilted downward and stayed there for a long moment. “It depends on the reason behind the sacrifice. And how you survive.”

“Assuming that we’ve both survived because of the sacrifices of others…” He turned to face Mara, he was rigid. She smiled and huffed out a breath of air as a gesture of reassurance, “I can’t help wondering what we’re supposed to do with it all. Can someone be honorable if innocent lives were the price?”

A long sigh escaped through the modulator, “If they give the sacrifice purpose…make it worth something.”

“Make the immeasurable _worth_ something.” Mara said to herself, practically forgetting the warrior’s presence from the bizarre momentary, but strong awareness that she’d never lean her head against Viv’s shoulder again.

The Mandalorian nodded once in her direction, then resolutely stated, “This is the Way.”

He swung around to face the boundless galaxy. The reflective dance of white light dashing across beskar entranced her. Mara caught herself wondering what kind of eyes he had. 


	11. Just In Case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have to get through some Big Sad Stuff.  
> TW: Major death, lots of grief, violence, threats.

_3 Weeks Before the Escape:_ ****

Mars ran her fingers over the rundown leather of the wallet that Viv had gifted her a week prior. Viv had begged her hold onto the credits. “ _Just in case.”_ She fought him because “ _just in case”_ insinuated there were other possible outcomes. “ _Just in case”_ meant there needed to be a fall-back if Viv didn’t return. Mars didn’t agree to “ _just in case.”_

Before leaving, he gave her a tight hug and a genuine smile. He stood tall. There were no cracks to be seen in his surface. He was untouched porcelain. But his hands trembled when he let go of her. He hesitated before stepping over the threshold of the brothel, and into the street with Jora Olo; his serpent’s mouth sneering. Jora was a towering human. Distrust was engrained into his beady green eyes, and his long sandy hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail.

City lights wiped away Keyorin’s view of the galaxy. Not a single star. Mars had learned to avoid looking above the sparkling skyline—she had been conditioned to know her place. Regardless of Scoria’s lessons, looking into the vast galaxy only brought a wretched yearning that she’d never be able to satisfy. Magic had to be created, manipulated, sought after. The shape shifting sprawl was intricately crafted by Mars and Viv, and satisfaction grew from that.

There was an exception inlaid in recent days, however. Mars stared into the galaxy, running her fingers over the worn-down wallet. She was wearing more clothing than she had in months; a long sleeved shirt and pants that tucked into boots. The wallet fit perfectly in her pocket, and she had taken it out and put it back several times already. The routine kept her from staring up at the empty sky for too long.

Seven days. Viv had asked for seven days. Every morning since he left, Mars climbed onto the roof. There was safety under the sun. The Overlord’s expected Workers to be sleeping or healing, so schedules were less strict. By the time anyone realized Jora’s stolen ship had been hovering above the Brothel, Mars and Viv would be parsecs away.

Except the sun just dipped down, bidding a mournful farewell to the seventh day. And Mars was staring up at the galaxy in the way she had never allowed herself to, and saw nothing like she always expected to. But Hope, the unreliable guide, whispered cruel reassurances, and so, Mars hadn’t looked away from the empty galaxy for seven entire days.

An eternity lay in every second that passed where the ship didn’t barrel into the atmosphere. A knot had developed on that first day, and it wound tighter and tighter with every sunset.

Exhaustion and madness lay behind her eyes now. Mars stormed into Destrie’s suite. She left behind a wafting stench of disappointment and fear as she glided by him. He was staring down at a datapad, and Mars yanked it out of his hands. “It’s been too long, Destrie. You need to send someone out to find Viv.”

“I was just about to come find you.” He said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard from an Overlord.

Mars rolled her eyes, pushing him away. “I’m not interested tonight, you ass! Viv hasn’t come back! Send out the Guards because something’s wrong.”

“You’re right, something is wrong…”

She threw her hands up. “Exactly, so we need to—”

“Viv was killed, Mars.”

Destrie grabbed her hand, but she didn’t feel it. She stared at the Overlord incredulously. The sentence didn’t make sense; didn’t fit in with the laws of physics; didn’t follow any structure that Mars could translate nevertheless rationalize. “Why would you say that? No-no, he wasn’t. He’s _missing_.” She growled.

The knot that had formed over the last seven days had come undone. No, the knot was shredded. Left in tatters as the whole gemstone city lifted out of its place on the ground and flipped over her head. “Jora got into a brawl…Viv was caught in the middle. Random, bad timing. Wrong place, wrong time. The poor man.” Destrie said, shaking his head with pensive sorrow. "I'm so sorry." 

“No. What are you talking about? He's—he's—” Mars shook her head, tears beginning to flood her eyelids. “You’re wrong. You’re lying. Why are you _lying_?”

Destrie was talking unintelligibly. But something was coming out of his mouth. She could hear the rise and fall of his voice. The syllables never formed into words. The Overloord took back his datapad, and before Mars could react, there was a pale white, lifeless form on the screen. She shoved it away and, before the tears escaped, she found herself running; desperate to escape the ever-shrinking suite. Velvet caved in; suffocated oppressively. The floors gave way with each step. 

The galaxy collapsed around her, and Mars could do nothing besides watch it happen and sob. Her nails clawed at her own chest; trying to dig out the hollowness that had started to settle deep underneath her skin and bones. Her fingers grazed the edges of it, but they never made enough contact to pull it out.

Mars kept expecting to hear someone land on her balcony, for hands to lift her off of the floor of her room and haul her up to the roof, for Viv to arrive and reassure her that Destrie was mistaken. He never bursted through those doors. And in his stead, the Empty held her hand and lovingly guided her into a dark room enclosed in dusty glass.

—

Thin, white smoke slipped slowly through the buttons and grates of the control panel, filling the cockpit with a stifling haze. A high-pitched siren cried through the machinery’s speakers, and every button started flashing red. The kid coughed from choking on the thick blades of smoke in the air. He was cradled in the Mandalorian’s arm, while the warrior tried to unscrew the metal face of the panel.

A pair of hands, unprompted and a little out of nowhere, stole the child from Mando. Mara set him down in what had become her seat. She had fallen into a quiet, unspoken routine with the Mandalorian and his foundling; knowing to stay in the cockpit when he descended the latter into the belly of the ship to eat, clean himself and his armor, or get some rest.

When he returned to the captain’s chair and the stars spit the woman back out, she’d lock herself inside of the sleeping quarters; he’d never explicitly given her permission to do so, but he didn’t mind. Her general, subtle cautiousness over his presence had become more apparent since Nevarro. Mando had thought the incident regarding the cuffs would have lost its sting when she swung at him with a loose pipe, but Mara was equipped with claws that refused to let go.

Mando slammed his fist against the panel, and let the cover fall. It slapped against the floor with a shrill clamber. Smoke, finally free, billowed out of the machine. A few of the wires had sparked, the heat they emitted, unprotected, melted through the rubber and the metal screws that held them into place. Mando waved off the smoke and with a sigh of frustration, he turned to fetch his tool box from below. But a hand torch dropped into his grasp before he could even take a step toward the door. Mara didn’t look away from the tool box that she must have already fetched. She carefully rummaged through the screwdrivers and drill bits without disorganizing them. “Your ship short circuit a lot?” She asked, holding up a core of electrical tape and letting it fall down her wrist onto her forearm.

“Not…detrimentally.” He said, shutting down the control panel, and waiting to hear the humming quiet before igniting the hand torch.

Mara snorted, her focus not leaving the wires as she tore a piece of tape with her teeth and wrapped it around an exposed wire. “Comforting.” She mumbled to herself.

Like well-oiled gears, they worked with and around each other—few catches in their process too. The smoke dissipated and, in time, stopped all together. “That should hold us over for a while.” Mando mused, screwing the face of the panel back into its original place.

Mara leaned over the captain’s chair and stared into the Navigation computer, “There’s a repair shop on…Takodana? _Tako_ dana.” She tried on different pronunciations, like she was seeing which one felt best in her mouth.

“You got it right the first time.” Mando said, “We need fuel anyway. Sit down, we’re changing course.”

He shifted out of hyperdrive, and the force of the ship slowing lurched them forward. The planet emerged immediately. Giant, green and blue, the stars just spit it right out as soon as they came out of hyperspace. In the reflection of the glass, Mando watched Mara’s eyes widen as soon as it appeared, absorbing as much of it as she could. “I’ll never get used to this.” She whispered, holding the child up in her lap so that he could get a good look as well. His nails tapped against the glass.

“It’s just another planet.”

“To you!” Mara countered, “When I was a kid I traveled a lot, but after that, I hardly had a chance to leave Keyorin or the brothel.”

Mando glanced back at her, she nuzzled into the child. “They didn’t let you leave?” He asked.

“There was danger in leaving the Brothel. Even under Scoria. We could go, and we did. But leaving with a client, even the ones who passed the chain code scans, came with some risks. Being a kid trapped with smugglers felt safer.”

“Smugglers.” He repeated.

A few moments passed before Mara answered. The planet still had a hold on her. Finally, she nodded absentmindedly. “Mhm. How do you think I learned how to get out of cuffs?”

Mando tried to ward off the heavy feeling that he’d horribly wronged Mara on Nevarro; turning himself into nothing more than one of her smugglers from childhood. Not that it mattered all that much, but he could see an entire future for her. One where she was explaining to Quinn how the Mandalorian, much like the Smugglers and Overlords, trapped her. The heaviness wouldn’t budge. Mando shifted the engine over to coast through Takodana’s atmosphere. “I shouldn’t have done that. Put you in binders, I mean…I didn’t think—” He tripped through the sentiment like it was loose rocks on a cliff’s edge, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Mara’s head snapped forward just as the Crest descended into the clouds. Her brows furrowed the slightest bit, and she became fascinated by a loose thread on the child’s tunic. “Good,” she murmured, “At least now I get to say I beat a Mandalorian in a fight.”

A smirk crept across Mando’s face, and he waved her off. “Now you’re being dramatic.”

“Oh? Then tell me, how’s your head feeling? You landed pretty hard—”

Right on time, the comlink sounded off with the voice of a shop owner reading off the number of the platform to land on. Mando shushed her. “Quiet. I’m busy.”

Mara rolled her eyes and choked down a bit of laughter.

Green vines found their home in the hard, stone crevices of the mechanic’s shop. A small human man pattered out of his office wiping his oil-ridden hands on a dirty towel as the Mandalorian’s boot met the ground of the station. Thick glasses magnified his eyes. The child floated next to him, cooing up at the birds that flew overhead. Several maintenance droids followed the mechanic as he clapped his hands. “What can I do for you?”He asked, his voice much larger than his stature.

“Fuel, and there’s a circuit issue in the cockpit.” The Mandalorian watched the droids approach the Crest, the hair on the back of his neck automatically lifted in defensiveness. “No droids.”

“You’re going to double my work?” His voice boomed, how was it possible for someone that size to be so _loud_?

He thought about the command stated more out of habit than actual necessity anymore. _I am not a living_ thing. He could still hear the sentence in the IG unit’s metallic voice. A sigh escaped him and he threw over a bag of credits. “Fine. Just fix the ship. Fast.”

Upon feeling the weight of the bag of credits, the mechanic nodded vigorously. “Oh…Oh, _of course._ Anything you need! We’ll have it done within the day!”

Mara, fidgeting with the torn fabric covering her scar, hopped down the ramp and slid to a stop next to the child’s pod. “There any place here to grab a drink?” She asked the mechanic.

“No.” The Mandalorian spat.

“There’s a cantina in the castle, you can’t miss it. Be careful. Real shady types there.” The man responded, eyeing the Mandalorian now. “But…I’m sure its nothing you couldn’t handle.”

“We’re not—” The Mandalorian turned to Mara. He wanted to find a location to lay low, but she was already walking out of the station.

The castle was covered in flags. They whipped and waved in the wind, cracking against each other and fluttering like flitting birds wings. Vibrant color echoed onto the walls, contorting and flashing with each gust of wind. In the distance, standing below them, Mara stared upward, seemingly trying to find significance in the insignificant.

The bustling bar was placed in the middle of the large room. A small group of way-too-drunk men and a Devaronian entertaining an agitated, wide-eyed Twi’lek took up most of the stools. The bartender watched over the group impassively, but made obvious note of the Mandalorian’s entrance. Several different species hung around the sides of the room, talking in hushed tones to let their conversations become eaten up by the louder, more rambunctious patrons.

Mara was sitting in a booth, her legs propped up as if she’d been waiting for him for hours, her eyes glued onto the Twi’lek at the bar, until she noticed him slide the child’s pod into the seat. “Don’t give me that look!” She said.

 _Original_. “Could this not wait?” Mando asked, unhooking his rifle and resting it across the top of his thighs when he sat.

“What else could we possibly do?” She asked, returning her attention to the Twi’lek.

A waitress droid rolled over, and slid a glass of clear liquid and a bowl of stew across the table. Mara passed the food over to the child who patted on the table with anticipation while she stuck a wooden spoon into the dish. She took a sip of her drink and sighed contentedly. “What’s the droid qualm about?” She asked suddenly.

Screams in locked cells, flashes of explosions, and the sting of smoke in his lungs scratched at the back of Mando’s brain, itching to yank him back in time. The final moment he’d seen his parents didn’t burn like it had when he was younger when the wound hadn’t quite healed. Time had blurred the edges of his memories. But while it did wonders on pushing off the tidal waves of loss, time couldn’t make them go away completely. The current still persisted, still tried to pull him under. But he learned how to withstand the undertow and keep his feet planted firmly in the ground. “My parents were killed by battle droids,” Mara’s concentration left the Twi’lek across the room and he continued, “The machines follow their programming regardless of the command. I don’t trust them. The risk outweighs the reward. Usually.”

Mara was intensely focused on him now. He’d been trying to force himself to get used to the intense eyes that seemed to look right through his beskar. For a moment, he worried she’d offer her sympathies again. But instead, she raised her drink and nodded in solidarity, “Alright, so we hate droids. I guess that’s how the Mandalorians found you and you swore the Creed?”

“Yes,” He raised an eyebrow at her knowledge of the Creed, “You must have heard those stories everyone talks about.”

“Scoria told us about Mandalore. Her rank lead to some insider knowledge,” The mention of the cursed planet sent a chill up Mando’s spine. Mara’s eyes were back on the Twi’lek and she shrugged, “Plus, a Creed doesn’t stop your kind from passing through a brothel every once in a while, so Workers have _actual_ insider knowledge.” She winked and her mouth twisted into a provocative, mocking grin.

Mando scoffed at her flippancy. It wasn’t that the statement was false; it’d be disingenuous to assume that there were no loopholes in the Creed. Hell, he was _alive_ because of a loophole. But even if that weren’t the case, he couldn’t pass judgement. While he had never been drawn into a brothel, he had still taken advantage of the ambiguities, as most do, when he was younger and equipped with an insatiable hunger that craved recklessness.

The Mandalorian tried to respond, but the woman had hopped out of the booth and was briskly making her way over to the Twi’lek. The group of men were preoccupied ordering another round of drinks to notice Mara whispering in their entertainment’s ear. They seemed to be making some kind of agreement; the Twi’lek grinning and nodding rapidly. He tried to focus his auditory sensors in on the two, but the conversation ended almost as quickly as it began.

Upon sliding back into the booth across from him, Mando tilted his helmet at Mara trying to understand what had just occurred. Before she could answer, a hand on the back of his neck and weight dropping down onto him.Every battle-hardened instinct shifted into self-defense overdrive. “Wait, no! Mando! _No!”_ Mara’s cries were hardly audible. Her arms outstretched as a failed attempt stop the Mandalorian from drawing his blaster while simultaneously wrapping a tight grip around the throat of his attacker.

A Twi’lek woman, eyes wide and blank, froze in shock. Her thin, blue skin lost its brightness as she struggled for air.

The jolt of adrenaline rushing through his veins and the sudden realization that his body had just instinctually moved to kill caused the Mandalorian’s heart to nearly beat out of his chest. “What the _hell_?” He growled, pushing the Twi’lek off of his lap and returning his blaster to its holster.

The cantina turned its full attention to the unfolding scene. It took a painfully long moment before it realized the theatrics had ended, and returned to its previous activity.

“No, no. Ryn, _I_ want to do business with you.” Mara was out of the booth again and pulled the Twi’lek, Ryn, farther away, trying to get out of earshot—a valiant but pointless effort. Silver on a blue temple glinted in the light.

“I don’t usually have women as clients, so I figured…” Ryn gestured toward Mando, he kept his gaze fixed on Mara.

“No, I wanted to get you alone. How much do you need to make for your Overlord tonight?”

Ryn stared, “I—What do you mean?”

“Do you want to work with those men?” All three of them simultaneously looked back toward the bar at the six men, they were belligerent. The Mandalorian realized in retrospect how rough they were on the Twi’lek. How, now looking at her, she wasn’t staring blankly at all, her eyes were stuck wide from fear. She was scared, it was made obvious as she averted her eyes to the floor and quickly shook her head. “Then how much do you owe your Overlord?”

“He wants 1,000. I’ve already made 800,” the Twi’lek said softly.

Mara pulled out a leather pouch that Mando hadn’t seen before and dumped its contents into the Twi’lek’s hands. “Here’s 300.” Mara deliberately lowered her voice, “Go get some rest.”

Mando turned away as the two exchanged sad smiles in a shared a moment of unified understanding. Once Ryn scurried out of the cantina, Mara returned to her spot with an exasperated exhale. “That was…” She thought about her justification, spinning her glass around between her fingers, “That was a miscommunication. Sorry _._ ”

Wanting to avoid any mention of his overreactive reflexes, he turned the conversation around, “You paid her off.”

“Twi’leks get the worst of it,” Mara sighed, “I don’t know who decided they’re all submissive and willing to take abuse, but—”

“I’ve known them to be more _unhinged_ than submissive,” he objected, pushing the memory of a lavender brow furrowed from infuriation back into its appropriate cell.

Mara shook her head, “Maybe if swaths of your species were exported into slavery and forced to entertain the elite, you’d be a little unhinged too.”

Whenever Mara spoke like this, flames might as well have flickered off of her tongue. Regardless of her seemingly short time free from the shackles, she already spoke of justice like a seasoned revolutionary. “Maybe,” he agreed. “Where’d you get the credits?”

She raised an eyebrow. “A friend of mine saved up and hid them from the Overlords. We…” She stared down at her drink, swishing it around, “We had this ridiculous plan to escape, so he gave them to me for safe keeping.”

Mando tilted his head, “You left your friend and took his credits?” He asked, genuinely surprised by her callousness.

“He’s dead.” Mara said simply, monotone. She clutched the empty leather pouch against her chest, and sank farther away into a realm of reality that Mando wasn’t sure he, or anyone for that matter, could reach.

The child slid the empty bowl of stew across the table, and Mando caught the dish before it collided with Mara’s drink. She smiled without an ounce of sincerity. His chest tightened at the sight, and packed prison cells yowled with laughter.

“Couldn’t you leave all this behind then? Start fresh?” Mando asked, and he meant it. She hadn’t made promises, struck bargains. For the first time, she was _actually_ free. He could drop her off anywhere in the galaxy. She was sure to find a home, safety, a family name. 

Mara pondered this for a moment, and nodded, “I could. But I have to finish what we started. Make his death worth something.”

—

There were benefits to traveling with a Mandalorian. Firstly, small talk was nonexistent. If there was nothing to say, no one was required to fill the empty space as a polite attempt to avoid discomfort. Mara had begun to believe, actually, that small talk was the genuine cause behind most uncomfortable scenarios.

Secondly, the atmosphere and reputation that follows the warriors like a trail of smoke will circle around and infect their counterparts by mere association. Their presence in a room could silence even the most menacing figures, and their partners could suddenly do the same.

Lastly, and this might be the most important part, when six drunk men stumble over to the booth of the woman who may or may not have stolen their Worker out from underneath them and they angrily demand reconciliation through retribution; victory didn’t just feel possible. Victory felt inevitable.

Mara remained still, watching the light reflect off of the Mandalorian’s helmet as the men approached. “You took our Prostitute from us.” The Devaronian slurred.

He was grungier than the rest, larger too. Greasy strands of orange hair hung down across two horns that grew through his red-tinted skin. He licked his sharp canines. His breath smelled of stale alcohol as he leaned in close to Mara to whisper, “Someone’s gotta take her place,” Cold, slimy hands with sharp nails swiped a piece of her hair behind her ear. “You think your Mandalorian can stop _all_ of us?”

Mando shook his helmet at the threat, leaning forward slightly. “Okay, boys! Settle down!” Mara laughed, suppressing the lump of nerves gathering in her stomach.

“Let a lady finish her drink!” She chided. Putting on a bit of a show for her audience, she began to swig down her beverage. Something hard pressed against the top of her legs under the table. She reached down only to find her partner’s rifle resting against her knee. The men were becoming antsier, more riled up by each passing moment.

The second the glass hit the table, the pair erupted. The Mandalorian shoved the rifle into Mara’s hands, and they launched out of their seats. Mando dodged the blade of a knife, and slammed his attacker’s head into the ground.

The Devaronian was caught in Mara’s tunnel vision. A red fist swung toward her temple, which she anticipated, and dropped low to dodge the blow. Her fingers found the switch on the rifle, and the weapon zapped to life; electric currents slid and crackled along the bayonet. It slammed hard against the his chest. His face contorted as his large body jerked and heaved from the tiny, powerful beams of voltaic energy, and he hit the ground with a gross thump.

Mara glanced at Mando, who had unleashed a grappling hook around the throat of one opponent, and was blasting another with a burst of flames that sent waves of heat throughout the cantina. The sound of a loud organic crack nearly caused the cantina, vision, and mere existence to slip away. A sharp pain shot across her skull as the butt of a blaster made contact with the back of her head. The tiniest dancing lights appeared in Mara’s vision.

Arms tightly wrapped around the dazed woman, reaching for her weapon. Mara slammed her elbow into the soft spot of her attackers groin, and used the single moment of relief to dig the electrified bayonet into his leg and pushed the convulsing body away from her.

The twirling stars were still floating around her, pulsating with each throb of her head. The Mandalorian was blocking and dodging the blows from the assailant who he had engulfed in flames moments earlier. Mara groggily realized an unnoticed blurry figure reaching back to slam a long dagger into the unprotected space just under the ridge of the Mandalorian’s helmet. Without thinking, without double checking her aim, Mara lifted the rifle and fired. The world faded in and out of darkness. The cantina fell horrifically silent. _Oh no. Who got hit?_

The dagger dropped to the ground into a pile of dust.

Witnessing his friend disintegrate proved to be the final straw for the Mandalorian’s burned attacker. He stepped back in shock at the harrowing conclusion to the scene, and stumbled quickly out of the cantina.

The bartender peaked over the counter now that the sounds of chaos and violence had died down. It was amusing how quickly the bar returned to its normal pace, as if a man hadn’t been turned to nothing more than dirt on the floor.

Mara was critically examining the feeble groans and the grotesque expression frozen on the face of the barely conscious Devaronian when Mando and the pod came to her side. Visions of the Twi’lek’s fear filled eyes took hold. She could practically see the Devaronian pulling Ryn toward him while she pulled back, attempting to squirm out of his grasp with a friendly smile plastered across her face. And no one did anything. _“Someone’s gotta take her place…you think your Mandalorian’s going to stop_ all _of us?”_ Invisible lights were still spinning around her head. Hot hatred rose like bile in the pit of Mara’s stomach. She clicked the trigger on the Amban Rifle. It cracked back to life.

No one did anything about it. Until now.

The weapon swiftly flipped around in Mara’s hands and the bayonet slammed down into the front of his trousers. Cries and sobs erupted from the body, his eyes flung open. “I want you to _look at me_.” Mara whispered through gritted teeth.

Ignoring his hopeless pleas for an ending, the electric current stayed steady until the man underneath was nothing more than a howling concoction of tears and snot and spit. Once the smell of charred skin filled the room and the boiling hatred in Mara’s chest eased back to a simmering heat, she halted the electric current, handed the rifle off to the Mandalorian, and stormed out onto the street.

The buzzing corner in front of the cantina reinvigorated the lights in her head. When did this planet get so _bright_? So _loud_?A few beings moved around her like a blurry, vibrating labyrinth. The flapping of the flags fluttered and thrashed around every bone in her body. Had she breathed once in the entire fight?

Air filled her lungs now. Rather than relief, she was met with shooting sensations of pain that traveled from her chest, through her heart, and down her spine. The entire planet with its flags and vines and trees and outlaws now existed in the spaces between her rib cage. A familiar glint of beskar shone in her peripheral and an even, modulated voice rang clear through the white noise, “You okay?”

“I’m fine…I—I just got hit on the head.” It was the only thought that Mara could translate into words.

Mando pulled her into a vine canopied alley across from the repair station. He studied her once over, searching for signs of a more serious injury. “You took a nasty hit, and the alcohol isn’t helping. But you’ll survive.”

Mara had forgotten she’d guzzled her entire drink before unraveling the incident into complete mayhem. The grogginess was being overwhelmed by exhaustion, the coolbrick on her back kept her latched onto the present. “Believe it or not, back on Keyorin, I was considered ‘the fun one’ at cantinas.” She panted.

The Mandalorian leaned against the wall facing her, his arms crossed. “There might be a freshly castrated Devaronian who would have an opinion on the matter.”

She’d blame it on the spirits or the comradeship that can occasionally accompany a shared victory, but Mara found herself feeling sentimental towards the armored figure in front of her. A hint of a smile attempted to pull at the corner of her mouth. She pushed it away. “Don’t mock me. You could be next.”

The Mandalorian’s demeanor changed. He intended to sigh, but the huff of air evolved into a quiet, withheld chuckle. His shoulders bounced as he tried to maintain a degree of stoicism. The smile threatening to expose Mara pushed through with vigor.


	12. The Abyss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Psychological torture

_3 Days After the Escape:_

_—_

Cold, hard stone dug into thinly covered bones. Exhaustion made the slightest movement excruciating. Chains constricting, tight and heavy, around ankles and wrists had grown into an extension of the body.

_How long has it been?_

The prisoner had been scrambling to remain in control of her mind, but whatever was left of her had dissipated into smoke and wafted lazily around her head like a halo. She desperately grabbed for the vapor. Desperately, desperately, desperately trying to feel something catch in her hands as she reached and clawed for herself back. But the mist slipped and swirled around her fingers.

_Is the mind really anything other than mist in the end?_

_That is how it returns home—back into the Abyss._

_Look._

Don’t look. The mist yearned for the Abyss. Scoria could feel how it longed to fall into darkness like a dull ache that only spread and throbbed when it received notice. And it was becoming more and more difficult to not provide the attention it craved.

_Look._

Don’t look. The prisoner shook off the Abyss. But the mist still danced menacingly around her. Slid across her sweat and dirt covered skin to agitate scarred tissue. Laughed at her. Sang victoriously to the chorus of screams; the dying kind. Of people begging to hold onto their ability to breathe, to exist. Of Alyx Treswick; the woman who knew her.

The Abbess and her monastery. No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t right. The Madame and her Brothel. Lies and truths blended, melted, seeped together in the mist.

_How long has it been since you’ve seen the light, Fleet Admiral Scoria Karaay?_

“How long has it been since you’ve seen the light, Fleet Admiral Scoria Karaay?”

The wicked mist wasn’t dancing, wasn’t singing, wasn’t laughing. The Abyss wasn’t begging her to look. There was someone here. Someone new. This was not her usual torturer who she had come to know. Scoria’s eyes forced themselves open; taking in a large, blurry figure above her. The voice was smooth like well-aged wine that fell sweetly down the throat and left even sweeter warmth behind. It spoke in the same cadence of a life fortified and forgotten in a solidified mind, and only melted back into reality when sanity disintegrated. A memory brought into reality by insanity and by the mist. “I-It hasn’t been long enough to help you,” Scoria wheezed, surprised in how her mouth could house muscle memory of who she wanted to be; who she had fought to become.

The figure dropped quickly. Too quickly for Scoria’s tired eyes to keep up. It knelt down to meet her face to face. A soft finger traced her jaw to pull her head up. Her vision cleared enough to make out a dark-skinned visage with even darker eyes, and a mouth that always curled up at the corners when he was amused. As he was in this moment. “Gideon,” Scoria whispered, coughing up the grains of sand that gathered around underused vocal cords, “Thought you’d be dead or detained by now.” 

Gideon’s curved lips twisted into a charming smile for a single moment, and then it fell away. “I could say the same to you, Admiral. I used to hear about your career through the ranks. A survivor, through and through. Until you weren’t anymore; killed in an attempted insurrection! Imagine our surprise when we found that you actually _deserted_. And went on to gallivant around with _prostitutes_ , no less.”

Scoria ran her tongue over her teeth. She could no longer hold the gaze of the memory that had shaped itself into the Imperial officer standing before her. “What are you doing here?” she asked, weighed down from exhaustion. Maybe this wasn’t a trick the mist was playing. Or maybe this was the final, grand display of a dying mind. She couldn’t be sure. “Aren’t syndicate power-grabs outside of your jurisdiction?”

“Nothing is outside of my jurisdiction now,” Gideon darkened, “I can be your savior. Given that you provide information.”

He unlocked the chains that held her wrists captive above her head. Scoria’s hands fell heavy by her sides. The taste of freedom slipped itself into her mouth and she reveled in the feeling of it. Gideon was a man who could convince a strong mind of anything; thinly veiled in charm and dignity. Even in her forgotten life, Scoria knew not to trust men like him. But freedom was rich. Was potently fragrant. Was intoxicating. It tasted like survival. No, not survival. It tasted like living.

Her wrists were raw and stiff. Scoria rotated them in a way that she hadn’t been able to for months. The cracking of her bones reactivating sent shivers up her spine, and her head was swimming. “What?”

“I can be your savior. Given that you provide information,” Gideon repeated himself, his voice starting to sharpen with the edge of impatience, “We start with that, and I can ensure that you’ll be free to go.”

Scoria scoffed weakly. “I left the Empire behind, I have nothing of use to you.”

“You know you can’t leave it behind,” Gideon corrected, sitting back on his heels, “But it seems, fate has brought us back together because of your new life, not your old one.”

She wondered if ignoring the veiled man would make him disappear. If she could treat reality as she did the Abyss.

_Look._

Don’t look.

“I’m interested in finding one of your prostitutes. One of those ridiculous Overlords says she goes by the name Mara,” Gideon stated evenly.

The recognition that flooded Scoria’s face was unmistakable, but she tried to pass it off as stiffening from discomfort in her bones. It was futile. Gideon already noticed. Surely, though, he couldn’t mean Mars. The hopelessly hopeful woman had a glimpse of an inferno hidden behind her eyes, but she wouldn’t have been able to escape the Brothel. Not alone. Not without her Viv. Scoria ran her fingertips over the last sentence she had uttered to the woman before a team of Overlords guided her onto a small ship. _I’ll face my ending in that damned city in the clouds._ Her blood, or whatever was left of it, froze in her veins. Why was this an Imperial matter?

“So you know her well,” Gideon said, “She’s come into a partnership of sorts with a mercenary I know. A mercenary who has stolen something incredibly valuable from me.”

“I don’t know anyone called Mara.” Scoria hissed.

“You and I both know that’s not the truth.” As veiled men so often do, Gideon let the shroud fall to the ground. He radically shifted into a more imposing, foreboding presence. He stood above her, staring down like his eyes were grazing across a couple of insects skittering into the cracks of the stone floor.

“If I did, she would be nothing more than one of thousands of workers. They escape all the time. She’s no different than any of the rest.”

Gideon acknowledged her attempt at a lie with a condescending sneer. “I knew you to be smarter than this.”

”You have the same amount of information that I do. You don’t need me.” She choked out.

Rigidly, he shook his head. “You’re wrong. I assure you this is your only path toward survival. So, Admiral Karaay, are you going to start being honest with me?”

Scoria glowered up at him, unresponsive. Her mystified mind allowed her one last courageous action.

“Then we must take a more _extensive_ route, I’m afraid,” he turned toward the cell door, and shouted, “Bring the Mairan.”

The room shrunk at the mention of the creature; the one she’d used many times over in her time as an Admiral. It was the cruelest torture tactic she could inflict on the most difficult, uncooperative hostages. Nothing would be left of them after being clasped in the tentacles of a Mairan. The blank eyes of destroyed, gutted beings haunted her. They spun around her now, entangled with the mist, in a nauseating display of irony-drenched fate. She heard the creature before she saw it; that deep, mournful cry. “Please, Gideon. This is ridiculous.” She said, sure her body would cave in on itself when giant, grotesque tentacles slithered through the bars of her cell. Panic settled into her thinly covered bones.

“I have nothing left to tell you! I promise you! There’s nothing else to say!” Scoria cried out, shuffling back and pressing herself against the stone wall that only moments ago, she so desperately wanted to be free from.

Gideon said nothing.

The beast took up nearly the entire cell. It’s body filled in every corner and crevice. Dozens of tentacles gracelessly lurched its body forward. It was grey, made of writhing fat and muscle that twisted and wailed as it slid across the stone. A sickening weight moved up Scoria’s leg; feeding on the mist now. Drawing it out of the particles in the air, out of the halo around her head, letting it soak into its limbs. The wet embrace coiled around her body, inching its way up toward her head. A force, an agonizing force slammed inside her skull, and every part of herself crumbled and cracked into infinity. The screams of innocents molded into the cheerful tears of her Workers; the arms of lovers; pride over a beautiful army; fields of rotting corpses; empty, lifeless eyes; Alyx’s tears; the trust; the betrayal; _I’ll face my ending in that damned city in the clouds;_ the anguished desire to survive no matter the cost.

There were deafening screams coming from somewhere, no, everywhere. They echoed out of the Abyss. The prisoner sobbed, begging for the mist to settle, for it to stop twisting around her, to be able breathe and exist as herself again. The Abyss could have the mist. Scoria would gaze into it, let it gaze into her. If that’d make it stop screaming. _“Please, stop! I’ll tell you about Mara! I think-I think she’s coming here! She’s coming to Bespin! I’ll give you whatever you want! Please stop, please stop, please!”_

The agony ended almost as quickly as it began. Scoria slumped over, staring into the bottomless bare space between her and the ground. Her eyes stung with tears and her chest rang sore with the ricochets of her cries. Gideon elegantly turned his back and before stepping out of the cell, said with his mouth curling up at the corners, “It looks like you’ll get to see the light after all.”

 _“Look!”_ The Abyss demanded.

So, Scoria did. She looked into the darkness. The darkness looked into her.

And in that infinite void, Scoria saw not Alyx or Gideon or the mist, but her own eyes, wide and deranged, gazing back.


	13. The Spy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence

Bespin was formed from the leftover haze of a gentle God’s pipe. Instead of mountains, instead of plains, instead of oceans, there were clouds. Monstrously soft clouds that carried so much beauty that they were a terror to look upon. Even Cloud City, in all its architectural grandeur, paled against them. Sunset painted the station orange; more ethereal than apocalyptic. The sharp, metallic lines of the floating city could have been mistaken as being artificially doctored into the yellow and pink clouds that cushioned the atmosphere.

Even the child responded to the splendor that unfurled before the ship. His eyes widened, taking in as much of the sight as he could. He climbed out of the co-pilot’s chair that Mando buckled him into. And with a surprising amount of grace, he scrambled onto Mando’s lap. Mara wondered if he wanted an unobstructed panoramic view, or if he, like all beings, merely wanted to experience this kind of beauty with someone he loved. Strangely, Mara was jealous of the child’s ability to do so. She’d been spoiled with company that transformed a city of outlaws into treasure. Witnessing true, real magnificence in a city that defied gravity still couldn’t compare.

“You have been detected as an unidentified vessel. Please provide landing permit.” A robotic voice erupted through the comlink.

Two ships pulled to the side of the Razor Crest and Mando flipped a switch. “No permit. We’re landing on Platform 2893 at the request of Cam Lex.” He stated calmly.

“Stay on course while we process your request.”

Mara leaned forward. “Should we be worried?” She whispered, her pulse fluttering at the notion.

“I forgot about Bespin’s domestic policy. We’ll be fine. If they don’t ask for a ping.”

She thought about the condition. “A ping—What the hell do you mean by that?” She asked.

“They probably won’t.” Mando mumbled, ignoring her question.

“Are you wanted?”

“There’s always a possibility.” He kept his voice low, and studied the small ships that flew by the Crest’s side.

“A _possibility_?” Mara retaliated, chuckling at the absurdity of her chances.

“Aren’t you coming here to rescue an Imperial Admiral?” He shot back, glancing behind his shoulder.

She absentmindedly ran her fingertips over the fabric of her headband. “You’re wanted by the New Republic _and_ the Empire. You’re the worst getaway driver I could have chosen.” She let her smile leak into her voice so he wouldn’t take the slight seriously.

He shrugged. “I warned you.”

“Permission granted to land on Platform 2893.” The comlink commanded, and the two ships sped in front of the Razor Crest and lead them into Cloud City.

The Fortress blended into the rest of the gigantic station. Born of steel and rounded corners, the towering, windowless beacon rested in the midst of run-down luxury. Mara wondered whether or not this planet’s sun was an artist. Every inch of the city was washed in the colors and patterns of the sky.

The Razor Crest settled on the landing pad, and a male figure was already standing at attention in front of tower. He was tall, but unimposing. Even standing still, he was more lanky than graceful. His dark hair, nearly as reflective as the building he stood before, was combed neatly against his scalp. Mara jumped down into the belly of the Crest and slung the bag with the few belongings she had across her shoulder. Mando, with the child in tow, triggered the ship’s hatch to screech open.

“You know, the cuffs and threats against my life aside, I’m glad I didn’t listen to your warning. Thank you.” She said smiling at Mando, and patting the child on his fuzzy head. The tiniest coos erupted from him in response.

The Mandalorian nodded once. Mara was worried he’d turn into a droid again. She was surprised when he spoke. “Agreed. You don’t need it, but I wish you luck.”

“Hello, Mara,” A steady voice coated in a rich accent called out.

Mara turned toward the spy. He donned an obligatory smile, and bent his body to look inside the ship. “You must be Cam Lex.” She replied, suddenly remembering a blaster that she’d dropped into her bag before a failed attempt to sneak out of the inn on Dantooine.

She unhooked the buckles and pulled the weapon out to hand back to Mando. “You can call me Lex. I see, as expected, you traveled here with a Mandalorian,” the spy replied, his voice moving through syllables like they were water; all flowing together.

Mara’s heart hitched as she moved to hand the blaster off. “Did you speak to Quinn?” She asked, hoping he had an update on the refuge.

“Actually, I spoke with Moff Gideon.”

Before the sentence could travel through the air and he could raise his pale hands above his head, the spy was staring down the barrels of two blasters. Mara took a step forward, the burning claws were starting to lightly scratch through her veins. “I am not—Please put your blasters away! I am not his ally.” He said, his flowing words started to babble and ripple; water disturbed.

Mara exchanged a quick glance with Mando. Lex cleared his throat and his face twisted into a scowl. “I suggest we all discuss this inside the Fortress in a more _civilized_ manner.” He offered.

Lex sauntered over to the Fortress and stopped short in front of a perfectly proportioned triangle inlaid into the steel wall. Numbers lit up inside the shape, and the spy punched in a code. The walls seamlessly opened up into a stark white corridor. Each step was heavier than the last. The mention of Moff Gideon had shaken her out of the illusion that the attack on the refuge was the Mandalorian’s battle alone, and that her connection to it was nothing more than coincidence paired with her own paranoia.

The mouth of the corridor opened into a great hall. While there were no windows, striking light poured in from the glass ceiling. A mixture of orange and yellow light shined through the angled and iridescent crystal panels and splashed over the stark white interior. Beings, some with the heart-rending scar on their temples, some without, were peppered throughout the room. Their light chatter rumbled off of the walls. The white-noise made the space feel more populated than it was. “Is this another refuge?” Mara sped up a bit to catch up with Lex, putting her question of the spy’s intentions behind her for a moment.

He turned toward her, standing taller than any man she’d met before. “I suppose. The Collective built this place once Workers became adequately trained. We needed somewhere to house them once they’re ready.”

Lex lead them down another pathway, out of the hall, and the unstained stark white felt brighter in contrast to the paintings the sun had crafted inside the rest of the Fortress. “Ready?” Mara asked.

They halted at a large door. The spy pressed in a passcode on the key pad, and ushered them inside a suite. “To fight, of course.” He said with a grin.

Like in the great hall, the sunset dripped down through the ceiling and across the furniture and walls. Two rooms were connected by a spacious parlor with a small kitchen nestled into the corner. “You’re building an army.” Mara said, staring up at the sky that poured into the room.

Lex gestured toward the child, and Mara worried it’d be the last gesture he’d make. The Mandalorian’s hand hovered over his blaster. “Yes. But it seems this…creature has caused mayhem for us. One of your Overlord’s knew Gideon had a hit out on a very unique looking Mandalorian, and, well, Mara, regrettably you caught the wrong person’s attention.”

The whole galaxy fell in on her at once. Her head was no longer connected to the rest of her body. She was floating. “Destrie.” She whispered, pondering what it’d feel like to crush the Overlord’s skull beneath her heel.

The spy scoffed. “Don’t get caught up on the ‘how.’ Gideon is terrifyingly brilliant. And he’s struck a deal with the syndicates. He helps destroy the Collective, if they can help him get the asset. He knows of your devotion to Scoria, Mara. If you step foot on that Resort, you might as well walk right onto his ship.”

“What would he want with me?” She asked, eyeing Mando who had frozen in metal; all reared back and ready to strike.

“Information. Gideon knows _all_ because he knows how to get information from places you’d never expect.” Lex ran his long, spindly fingers through his hair. Not a single strand reacted to his touch.

Mara rubbed her eyes, pressing so hard into them that she saw hyperspace in the darkness. She willed the spy, the Mandalorian, the child to all go away. For the clock to turn back so she could travel in time; back to screaming into the city with Viv before he walked out of the door with Jora Olo; back to when she could have stopped all of the convoluted chaos in its tracks. “I don’t have any information.” Mara gestured toward the Mandalorian, his gaze was fixed on the child in his arms. “I’m trying to get Scoria! I’m useless to him! You’re a spy, aren’t you? Tell him that!”

“You need not worry.” Lex grabbed Mara by her shoulders and she flinched from the evocative closeness of a stranger. “We have a plan. If you _both_ show up at the Resort—”

Mando’s modulated voice and the rapid motion of him taking one incredibly quick step toward Lex yanked Mara out of her fury-driven daze. “You’ll put us in the perfect spot for an ambush.”

The spy let go of Mara’s shoulders and crossed his arms. “If Gideon gets what he wants, then the Collective will be destroyed. I assure you, I’ve risked too much to allow that to happen. We just need him drawn out. You’d like an opportunity to get a clear shot at him, correct?” Lex’s voice cracked as he spoke, his flowing accent losing its dignity.

Thick, uncomfortable silence bellowed low and ominous as the Mandalorian contemplated the idea. Lex was the first to wade into it. “We have a plan; one that rescues Scoria, _and_ gets Gideon off of our backs. We will discuss it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” The Mandalorian hissed. “We’ll discuss it _now._ ”

Lex was already walking out of the suite. “ _Tomorrow_. Our squad leader is out. We need her.” And the door slammed shut behind him.

Regardless of the bright, ambient light that spilled across the space, the room held an undeniable darkness now. Mando shook his head. “He’s—”

“Strange. This whole thing is strange.” Mara finished his sentence, shivering from the residue the spy’s hands left behind on her shoulders. “How would Gideon know that I was coming for Scoria? Destrie doesn’t know that I found out Scoria was being held here.”

“You don’t think there’s anything you or your friend could have said that gave your plan away?” Mando asked.

Mara rolled her eyes. “No. We were trying to _game_ the system, not end up in a Holding House. We'd never even hint at the notion.”

He took a deep breath. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Mara nodded, understanding that the Mandalorian was correct. Quinn and Tanian were correct. Something—something that she couldn’t quite grab ahold of to study closely—was terribly, inexplicably wrong. But Scoria was _here_ and she was alive. Hope reared its treacherous head. Mara forced it back down, trying not to let it grow too large to maintain.

She padded through the suite and set her bag on a small bed to take claim of one of the rooms. And she realized that Scoria may have been right about Desire being the most predictable force in the galaxy, but Hope, blindingly beautiful Hope, was the scariest. She could see the everlasting affects of fear in her face as she studied herself in the bathroom mirror. She’d lost a lot of her color, and dark bags hung underneath her muted eyes. 

The bacta burned a hole in her pocket as she studied the misshapen wound on her temple. She stared into the vial, and back at the ugly gash that was entering the final stages of healing; where it itched and shouted its presence. Kai had been adamant that there was safety in invisibility. And that seemed true. But there was also refuge in recognition. A scar that hadn't healed had lead her straight to her kind. So without even contemplating what life would be like without the siren on her temple, she dropped the bacta back into her bag.

When pressurized, hot water poured over Mara, the sensation relaxed her so abruptly that she nearly sobbed from joy. Everything was left outside of the shower. Scoria, Gideon, the Mandalorian, the adorable child-sorcerer, the Empty, all of the heartbreak she’d been carrying. They all stayed on the tile floor where she would come back to them once she was finished scrubbing her hands through her hair. Right now, she wanted to bask in the embrace of the steam and the feeling of being clean, truly clean. The ragtag washrooms of cheap inns may have suited bounty hunters, but Mara had silently, and despairingly longed for the amenities that she had grown used to in the Brothel—a soft bed, a shower capable of producing hot water, ample space.

All of her pain and responsibilities cried out for her return, and Mara was able to ignore their pleas until her fingers began to wrinkle and prune. Once she pressed her feet against the cool floor, they absorbed back into her body through her soles, running up her legs, into her arms, and settling in her chest. She was heavy again.

Assuming Mando would have locked himself into his own room by now, Mara pulled on clean clothes and returned to the parlor. The sun had gone to rest. The suite was dimly lit by a rim of light that was inlaid into the walls, the glint from a suit of beskar seated on the sofa surprised her. He was loading his rifle, and the child was playing with a small silver ball next to him. “I should have known you’d grab your weapons before doing anything else.” Mara joked, but she didn’t smile. She wasn’t sure if her muscles would even allow it.

“We actually ate, washed up, and _then_ grabbed the weapons,” He didn’t look up from what he was doing.

Mara instantly felt foolish for her shower induced hypnosis, and placed herself next to Mando, grabbing a blaster and a gas cartridge to reload it. Without a word, a gloved hand took the cartridge from her and placed a smaller version back in her grasp. She made note of the mistake, realizing that he had laid out the cartridges to match each blaster, and she got to work. They proceeded silently like this until the weapons were ready for battle. The child ran his hands over the ball and gazed lovingly into its shine. “Why him?” She asked. “You’ve been a bounty hunter for a while, right? Of all of the quarries…why did you save him?”

He lifted the child, and studied the tiny creature. “It wasn’t…right to hand him over with no questions asked.” Small green fingernails tapped on the front of the Mandalorian’s helmet. “He’s just a kid. And he’s worth the risk.”

The visor turned toward her now as she observed the warrior and his foundling. Mara felt as though she had trespassed. “Are you going to raise him? Will he swear the Creed when he reaches his prime at 200 years old?” She asked, finding herself unable to support the weight of the entire day alone. Out of a habit not quite yet trained out of her, she leaned against him and laid her head on his shoulder.

Lost entirely in the nostalgia that accompanied the gesture, Mara forgot about the pauldron. Her temple clanked against beskar. A high ringing vibrated through her ears. Heat rose across her face as she realized that the figure next to her was very much _not_ her Viv and most likely someone who wouldn’t appreciate unwarranted displays of closeness. She stumbled and tripped to think of an explanation, but he spoke first. “No.” He clicked the beskar shoulder plate out of its place, and a long, drawn out pause followed. “I’m bringing him to the Jedi.”

Mara studied him, making sure she was reading the situation correctly. Mando stared down at the pauldron in his hands, running his thumb over the mudhorn skull that was carefully welded into the surface. She concluded that even if this was in her mind, she simply didn’t care and pulled her feet up to settle back against the Mandalorian’s shoulder. “But he’s yours.” She argued. Her stomach dropped from the notion that the warrior would have to part with his foundling.

“He’s not. He belongs with the Jedi, so they can train him and keep him safe.” Mando set the child down between them. “By Creed…he’s a foundling, until he’s reunited with his kind.”

Mara stared up at the helmet, trying to read the angle, the posture, a note in his voice; anything to gain insight as to what was going on underneath all that metal. “So you’re going to let him go, and you’re okay with that?” She whispered.

“This is the Way.” He stated. Mara was beginning to realize this wasn’t just something he’d said in a moment of philosophical reflection, but a mantra he lived by. Or maybe the statement was his ingenious way to just end any conversation he didn’t want to continue. Either way, the tactic was effective.

Tiny feet and hands pressed into her, and something warm curled up in her lap. Mara looped her arm through Mando’s—ignoring the way he stiffened—and pulled the child closer. Giant ears and a fuzzy head nuzzled against her chest. The vines of fatigue seduced her into closing her eyes with the most compelling whispers. They slithered around her limbs, soaked into her skin, and spread through her veins. Just before she let them pull her completely into sweet, comfortable darkness, Mara could have sworn a few stray wet hairs that were dangling in front of her face were swiped away and a gloved hand had gently brushed across her jaw. But that could have just been the madness of a dream.

—

Nevarro was crumbling. Din was sure that if he looked behind him, the whole planet would be cracking open, sending broken slabs of debris into the void of space. Even so, though, a platoon of storm troopers continued to fire at will. Din heard the monstrous boom before he felt its heat, and the immeasurable power of the explosion sent him flying backward. There is no sound quite like the sound of bone cracking against beskar, and the _crack_ of his skull against his helmet was so loud that he figured he’d die right there.

Except he didn’t.

The blow had knocked him onto his back, and he was staring up at an unobstructed view of the grey sky. The planet was eerily quiet; the chaos halted as soon as his body hit the ground. The ground was no longer splitting apart. The galaxy was no longer sucking up the debris. Din reached to check his head for injury, and found his hands met his hair immediately; uncovered.

A shock of panic zapped through his system, and he jerked to his feet. It wasn’t just his helmet, beskar was no where to be seen. In the armor’s place was a heartbreakingly nostalgic red tunic and matching trousers. He traced his hands over the threading, but there was something off about the stitching. There was something off about the shade of crimson.

The town was frozen in time. Dust particles had stuck in their place, unmoving. The bomb was detonating, but not expanding. A splatter of ash and dirt haloed around the statue of flames. The storm troopers were gone, but blaster shots still hung in the air; buzzing and trembling in place. Din, stuck in the clutches of shock, turned around to evaluate his surroundings, only to be face to face with a fleet of decaying Mandalorians covered in rusted over and cracked armor.

Shards of bone, dripping blood and organs spilled out through their armor as they stood at attention before him. Slowly, each of the warriors stepped aside to allow the golden-plated Armorer to swiftly glide forward. She came to a stop once she was toe to toe with Din. Exposure, dread, and fear brewed a toxic mixture in the pit of his stomach, and the concoction was about to boil over. “Din Djarin…” The Armorer’s melodic voice almost distracted him from the animated Mandalorian corpses folding in on themselves. Their skin tore and bone shattered until they collapsed into gaseous vapor, leaving only a pile of beskar armor behind, “Look at what you’ve done.”

Din had been a child the last time fear had burrowed under his skin so fervently. Feral and voracious, fear burrowed just below the thin membrane, making its way into his bloodstream when the Armorer plunged a dagger into the space beneath his sternum.

The Mandalorian lurched awake the moment the metal pierced his lungs. His throat had closed in. _Where am I?_ He violently shook a weight on his arm off. The helmet obstructed his view just enough to prolong his state of confusion as he turned to remember exactly what planet he was on. _The helmet._ Relief took root upon realizing he wasn’t exposed, out of armor, in broad daylight. On a decimated Nevarro. Standing before rotting Mandalorians.

Something grabbed hold of his shoulder. The Mandalorian snatched the offending wrist and poised himself to separate the bone from whoever it was attached to. “Woah, Mando! Stop! Stop, you’re safe.” Mara whispered, a hint of panic that she couldn’t disguise leaked through. Horrified, he released his grip.

“I—” _am sorry for almost breaking your wrist._ “I didn’t know you—”

Mara casually waved him off, and shifted the kid in her arms. “You're alright. I know some battles outlast the fight.”

The room reappeared around him. The blasters on the table, the dim light that shaded the space with a yellow hue, the woman and his foundling who had just fallen asleep against his shoulder before he’d almost snapped her wrist in half. His heart was still racing. His body hadn’t quite caught up to his surroundings yet. The worst part was the fact that Mara didn’t leave. She didn’t say anything. She sat beside him as if nothing had happened, rocking the child back to sleep.

Mando tried to think of something to say. He had never been the best with words in scenarios like this, he never really needed them, but now he frantically searched. “What are you doing?” _All that looking, and that’s what you go with?_ The cells screamed.

A surprisingly genuine smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth. “I’m waiting to see if you need me to go or stay.” She said casually.

Mara’s answer might as well have been the knife that the Armorer had wielded. He needed it to stop; he needed her to stop forging the dagger that was pressing farther and farther into his lungs. “You should return to your sleeping quarters.” He tried to keep his tone even; unthreatening.

“Alright.” Mara stood, the sudden chill that replaced the space where she had been sitting made him a little too aware of how close she had been. “But I’m keeping the kid tonight.”

Trying to remain as sensible as possible, he refused. “That’s not necessary. He’s fine with me.”

Mara lightheartedly nudged him against the helmet, “Yeah, he is. But he’s so _warm.”_ Her back was turned now, but she kept speaking, “And you should get out of that armor. We need you sharp for the ambush in the morning.”

Once the door shut, Din slipped off his helmet. Open air greeted him and quickly restored the full functionality of his lungs. It wasn’t until he had laid down on the bed with his armor set aside neatly in the corner of then room, that he realized the remnants of a weight on his shoulder still hadn’t worn off. Mara clinging to Din’s arm and the child comfortably nestled in-between them resembled an illusion more than an actuality. He felt too odd, too out of his element, to accept that the tug under his sternum proved its existence. Din simply didn’t belong in that memory or in any circumstance that resembled it. He knew he shouldn’t have removed his pauldron for her to lay down. He shouldn’t have let her tangle herself against him. But he’d never seen her look soft. He’d never touched flowing magma before.

Unlike most of the moments that lived in his bones, he wasn’t all that eager to haul this one back into a cell. He did anyway. And once it was locked away, begging for freedom, Din willfully disregarded its presence.

Waking up feeling refreshed wasn’t a normal occurrence but, today of all days, Din was relieved that he didn’t have to push through the dead weight of weariness. The sun hadn’t yet brightened the sky when he ate and began to strategize possible outcomes for the impending fight ahead of him.

Mara ambled out of her room just as light began to seep though the ceilings. She shrugged on a black vest and zipped it up so it wrapped snug around her figure. The child followed close behind her, and she lifted him onto the countertop so he could dig into a bowl of fruit. The rings around her eyes had faded, and more energy laid behind her irises than he’d seen since she’d rendered a Devaronian a eunuch in a cantina filled with criminals.

The door to the suite slide open just as the kid swallowed the last of the portions of fruit that Mando was handing off and Mara had finished sinking her teeth into bread slathered in jam. The spy stepped through the threshold wearing a grey uniform, donning a short red cape. “I trust you are both ready.” He said. Mando hated how he spoke like an Imperial Officer; commanding, pedantic, and utilizing an air of confidence to blow away underlying cowardice.

Nevertheless, Mando exchanged a quick glance with his partner before putting the child into the satchel and flinging the rifle over his shoulder. They quietly trailed Lex through the stark hallway into a turbo-lift. The silence, while not all that noticeable to the Mandalorian, ate away at Mara. The energy around her buzzed as she fidgeted with her fingers and kept eyeing the blaster that the spy had holstered around his waist. Finally, the mouth of the lift wheezed open, and they were faced with an impressively massive facility.

A squad of fighters was engaging in blade training; the unmistakable sonic shutter of vibroblades clashing together echoed off of the walls as they squared off. A dozen others were practicing hand to hand combat in a section that was specifically dedicated to rings and mets to cushion the impact of a fall. There were a few men, but the beings were mostly women—Twi’lek’s and humans making up the vast majority with a few Pantorans, Togrutas, and even the enigmatic Chiss sprinkled throughout.

The staple flow and graceful figure of a Twi’lek was dodging and maneuvering through holograms of projectiles in a long range that was divided off from the rest of the space. The Mandalorian didn’t even have time to fully process the shooting range the electrified obstacle course, or the weapons testing facility located in the back before the fluorescent blue Twi’lek flipped out of the range and bounced to their side. “Ah! Our bait’s finally here!” She said, her canines flashing into a wide grin.

Mara zeroed in on her, tightening her gaze. Mando recognized the slow burn that was beginning to ignite in amber and was comforted by her immediate distrust. Lex broke up the tension. “Mara, Mandalorian…this is Cas Zileke. She’s our Squad Leader.”

Cas nodded and turned her bright, green eyes toward the child and knelt down. “And here’s the reason behind the destruction of the Collective, huh? At least it’s cute.”

The Mandalorian instinctively moved to grab his blaster as he had become accustomed to when strangers addressed the kid. But after getting a good look, Cas wasted no time. She started walking toward a the back of the facility and waved for them to follow. “Let’s go.”

The Twi’lek brought them into the engineering lab that simultaneously functioned as a fully stocked armory. She stopped at a large round table and triggered the holoprojector to come to life. A glowing, white layout of a station—entirely independent of Cloud City—expanded out in front of her. The structure was a massive halo of glass and metal, the belly was interwoven with a labyrinth of tunnels and rooms. Entirely round, and hollowed out in the middle, the station encased a large plaza. “This is the Resort,” Cas said, “There’s only one entrance known to outsiders, and it leads straight through the courtyard. That’s where Gideon plans on ambushing you before you can get here—” she zoomed into the projection, focusing on a layout of cells, “The dungeon; where, theoretically, they’re keeping Scoria.”

“Theoretically?” Mara interjected.

Cas opened her mouth, but Lex raised his hand. “Where they _are_ keeping Scoria. Cas, go on.”

The Twi’lek studied the spy and grimaced before she continued. “We have two squads of fighters that will come in as soon as Gideon comes out. Each wave will hit the courtyard; here,” She pointed to a tunnel system that let out in the middle of the courtyard, “And here,” Her finger waved toward a rear entrance that was only accessible via ship. "You'll both enter in through this way too."

“I’ll be your eyes and ears in my office.” Cam handed Mara an earpiece comlink, and Cas pointed to a room filled with computers.

“We'll take care of any reinforcements that come along, and Mando, you take care of Gideon. Easy.” Cas said. Regardless of the suspiciousness of the entire scenario, the Mandalorian enjoyed the thought of a blaster shot to Gideon’s temple.

He was about to question the use of only two squads, but Mara spoke before him. She was studying the layout of the Resort extensively. “How many fighters are in a squad?” She asked.

“Five. Gideon will be coming in light.” Lex stated before Cas could respond and she rolled her eyes at him.

“Ten?” Mara said. “Just ten? Mando, you said there was a fallout with Gideon on Nevarro. Does ten sound like—”

“No.” He gritted. “Gideon doesn’t come in light.”

Cas nodded rapidly. “Exactly! Lex, we need more—”

Lex scoffed and waved them off with an air of arrogance that begged for a blow to the jaw. “Gideon was left with barebones reinforcements after Nevarro. We will not make the same mistake and waste our resources. Once Gideon is taken care of, we’ll get Scoria, and she can make these calls, but until then, you are going to listen to me.”

The kid shifted in the satchel, and Mando placed his hand on the back of his head to keep him still. The spy was compromised, that much was obvious. The Mandalorian entertained the Collective’s doomed revolution for long enough, but now, the kid was directly at risk due to internal squabbles and avoidable battles. He shook his head in pure frustration and walked out of the lab.

Just before reaching the lift, a hand wrapped around his elbow and Mara jumped in front of his path. The Twi’lek followed closely behind her. “What are you doing?” Mara asked, her eyes flooded with fury.

The Mandalorian spoke directly to Cas. “I didn’t agree to be part of your revolution. The kid’s safety is my only priority, and there is something wrong with that spy.”

She crossed her arms. “Yeah, Lex is an ass, and he's not a leader. Scoria _is,_ though. I can guarantee your kid’s safety, but I’m not going to mince words; one Mandalorian will make up for the resources I’m not being given. I need you. And I’m giving you a chance to get close to Gideon.”

The Mandalorian closed the space between them, and the Twi’lek didn’t even flinch. She stared at him dead on. “I don’t trust him or your… _Collective._ ” He growled. “I’m out.”

“Then let’s bypass all of them.” Cas offered. “We’ll make our own plan.”


	14. Evolving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence, PTSD symptoms

The Jedi and the Sith were mistaken. In fact, every religion that Mara knew of had been wrong. Hell never looked like Chaos. Never took form as an endless void. Never tormented the evil.

Hell was beautiful. Draped in velvet and bright light. Shadowed by the branches of trees saturated in pink flowers. Provided peaceful sanctuary for those who preyed on the innocent.

And the Syndicates knew how to create it. In their brothels, in their Holding Houses, and, now, in their Resort.

The station defied gravity independently from Cloud City. And when the clouds spit out the gorgeous, asymmetrical tower, the first thing Mara noticed was all the green. The structure was cylindrical, and covered in windows. Inside the hollowed out center was the courtyard that grew a lush garden with vine-drenched and flower laden trees.

The Razor Crest landed exactly where Lex had commanded. The child, still cozied up in the satchel, was bouncing against the Mandalorian’s hip as they walked through the courtyard. Cas had attempted to convince him to leave the child on his ship, but Mando shot her down. And the anger that erupted from the modulator even made the Twi’lek throw her hands up in surrender. His distrust in the Collective made the hairs on the back of Mara’s neck stand up, and she found herself consistently swallowing her own defensiveness. However, something primal, something ancient that Mara didn’t quite understand screamed at her to heed the Mandalorian’s warnings.

The hologram they had studied with Cas for the last two hours didn’t do the colossal black skyscraper and blooming lawn any justice. Mara adjusted the staff strapped to her back, and checked that the blaster was still holstered in place. Cas had opened up the arsenal too late for Mara’s taste. In her opinion, the armory should have been where they started their morning. Because the vast collection of weapons was awe-striking; more than she’d ever seen in one place, even making the Mandalorian’s collection seem miniscule. The walls were decorated with melee staffs, blasters of every caliber, grav charges, and protective gear. And there was a black, elegantly forged double-bladed staff hanging on the wall that could almost make Mara forget about the suspicious spy and Imperial Officer who were threatening to ruin everything Scoria and the Collective had fought for.

“What is _this_?” Mara asked, starry-eyed and grinning, as she pulled the staff off of the wall.

There were shocks implanted into the shaft, allowing it to cock like a rifle. Mara jerked it upward, and reveled in the power of the mechanical sound that ignited from the motion. Immediately, a sharp white and glowing energy field outlined the serrated metal edge. Based on pure instinct and desire, she spun the weapon around her body; bewitched by the low hum of sonic sound waves that the vibrations created as the blades sliced through the air.

“It’s a vibrostaff…with an energy blade.” Mando noted. Mara was so caught up in the balance of the weapon that she almost missed the Mandalorian’s visor settling on her for a moment longer than usual. He didn’t look away until Mara met his stare. And he turned to Cas. “How are you getting all of these—”

“We have more allies than you’d think.” Cas said, holding a leather holster up to Mara for size comparison and dropping a blaster into it. “There’s a leader in Cloud City who’s probably as tired of the Syndicates as we are. He was with the mining operations or something. Fell off for a bit to help with the Rebel Alliance. I don’t know the specifics, he stays out of our way. I just know we’re well-funded, and Lex won’t let us act like it.”

Cas smirked at Mara as she handed off the holster, and took it upon herself to readjust Mara’s headband to hold back the curls that were falling in front of her face. “The staff suits you.” She said. “You’re finally looking how a Worker should.”

That was the last moment Mara had been able to smile. And the fact she had been so easily distracted only hours before felt ridiculous. She slowly sauntered next to the Mandalorian and made note of the hatch on the ground several feet ahead; the hatch that would be her gateway back to Hope. Mara’s heart beat in her ears, and the Mandalorian’s calm only amplified every one of her quick panicked glances, or her fidgeting hand as it hovered over her blaster and readjusted the staff.

Mara never thought to be terrified of Hell. She knew Hell. She had been raised there. If given the opportunity, she’d walk through the fires of Chaos and use the flames to burn the Resort and all the beauty the Syndicates created down. But right now, feeling the heat of the inferno licking at her fingertips, Mara wanted to turn around and retreat to the velvet bed on Keyorin where her biggest worry was attempting to trick Destrie into being a human being. Or keeping the ones she loved. And failing.

Over and over again. Failing.

The claws dug in; forcing Mara forward.

A glimpse of white flashed in her periphery, and deadly red sparked off of the Mandalorian’s shoulder pauldron. And then, there were Storm Troopers—not yellowing and dusted over like the one’s on Dantooine, but crisp, clean, and clad with intimidating posture. They arrived in numbers that made Mara wonder whether Mando’s suspicions of the spy were correct. Like the flowers in the trees, they were everywhere; spilling down from the balconies, pouring out of the trees, flooding out of the doorways of the sleek black skyscraper. “Alright, go! I’ll cover you!” Mando yelled, handing Mara the kid.

And she ran.

Harder than her legs and lungs deemed acceptable, she ran toward the hatch in the ground. A blaster shot grazed her shoulder and Mara hissed from the burning heat the laser left behind. But she kept running. The sidewalk ahead lifted on hinges, and Cas and five of her fighters jumped out of the darkness underneath the garden. Mara held the kid close and slid into the shadows. The ground disappeared, and didn’t even bid her farewell. The crushing collision of cement against her feet made her knees buckle. She twisted around to keep the child from absorbing the impact, and found herself on her back, the staff digging into her spin. She gasped for air and stared up at particles of dust that floated through the rays of light leaking through the crevices of the closed hatch.

Blaster fire faded into the muffled screams of battle. The kid squirmed, and tried to wiggle out out of her iron grip. Mara held him up, searching for any sign of injury—a bruise, a cut, a misplaced hair. “You’ve still got both of your ears, buddy.” She reassured him as he huffed out a breath of air in irritation. “I already dragged your pops into a revolution. Hate to give him more reasons to kill me.”

Once the kid was safely hanging in her own satchel, Mara was running again. Through the concrete labyrinth underneath the garden. She’d extensively studied the hologram of the Resort, and boarded the Razor Crest confident that she could have navigated the underbelly of the station with her eyes closed. But the tunnels seemed upside down when they weren’t glowing white in front of her. The dim lighting and concrete never evolved, never changed; every pathway was identical.

Mara tucked herself against the wall as a few service droids skittered by, her hands wrapped tight around a new blaster. The echo of their trills and chitters died down, and Mara sighed. “The dungeon is supposed to be _here. Right here._ ”

She turned down another indistinguishable path, scanning the walls like she was going to find answers and directions carved into stone. She was so focused on her search that Mara almost missed the door. A giant steel door that she had come to know like home. Her heart hitched in her chest. Hope built up so high and mighty that it threatened to batter every thought, instinct, action in its terrible wake.

Metal squealed as it slid into the wall, and Mara stepped through the threshold; hands shaking as she readjusted her grip on the blaster. Three guards at most. That was what Cas had said. Mara expected to take down three guards. But she didn’t expect _not_ to. She didn’t expect to walk through the steal door and find…nothing. Doors were strewn open. Shackles and chains hung deathly still on the stone walls. But there were no Guards. No prisoners.

No Scoria.

 _The spy better be dead._ The claws weren’t lightly grazing her veins, they were digging. Slashing through her bloodstream. Mara shut her eyes. The pale, white form of a corpse on a datapad emerged in the darkness. She lifted the comlink and tried to steady her breath. “Lex. Come in!” She hissed. _Silence._

“Scoria’s not here, Lex. _Come in!_ ” Mara tried again, refusing to let her fire filled impact her voice. _Silence._

“I _swear_ , if she’s dead…” She whispered to herself, and the kid watched her intently.

Mara switched to channel two; Cas’ channel. “Cas! Mando! Scoria’s not here.”

The sounds of death and war hurled through the speaker. “What do you mean she’s not there?” Cas yelled. “We’re outnumbered! Gideon didn’t even— _shit—”_ A man screamed in the distance behind the static. “Gideon isn’t here! We walked straight into a damn snare!”

Mara—no longer flesh and bone—was all fury and flame. “I’m going to find Lex. He’s not responding.” She growled.

“I’ll meet you there.” Mando’s voice cut through the speaker, and in the background Cas frantically called out the order for retreat.

Donning confidence that only evolved from apathy, Mara swept through the tunnels and found her way up into the skyscraper of the Resort without scanning for threats. The claws dragged her along, and she unsheathed the staff to carry by her side as she made her way to the spy’s office. Murder pranced around her, twirling circles around each long stride. Two syndicate members caught a glance of her, but before their hands could raise their comlink’s to announce her presence, Mara swung the child’s satchel behind her back and cut them down. The energy blade left the men as a smoking stack of corpses on the ground.

Mara stumbled upon the Mandalorian just as he was driving a knife into a man’s chest; he caved in on himself. There were no pleasantries or greetings as Mando fell into step beside her. “Gideon really didn’t show?” Mara asked as they reached Lex’s lab.

“Didn’t think he would.”

She sighed. “You were right. Lex set us up.”

Mando nodded, blood was smeared across his chest plate.

“He’s not leaving here alive.” Mara stated—more so that she could promise the inevitability to herself—and triggered the control panel to open the door.

“Nope.” He reached over, took the kid back into his arms, and made sure he was comfortable in his own satchel.

Bright, trilling computers droned on in the glass office—the walls were painted with a view of terrifyingly beautiful clouds. The seat where Lex was supposed to have been waiting for Death was pushed to the side of the room like it was thrown away in a panic. Mara sighed. She wasn't able to stifle her disappointment. While the thoughts of seeing Lex laid across the ground were disappearing for Mara, Mando was already sifting through the information on the screens. “Take those,” he said, motioning toward two of the computers across the room. “There has to be something we can use here.”

Mara tapped into the controls and quickly skimmed through the meaningless codes and protocols.She counted every painful beat of her heart, becoming increasingly anxious with each dying lead. Until a Holding House caught her eye. She clicked through the transmissions—the information wasn’t shared. “You’re looking for Jedi, right?” Mara asked.

“Yeah, why?” The Mandalorian was clicking through headshots. He didn’t even turn to look at her.

“Maybe Gideon is too. Because I may have just found Lex’s leverage. There’s a Holding House on Savareen run by a discharged Rebel officer...Frederick Hex, who—”

“You should look at this.” Mando interrupted. He picked up Lex’s holoprojector—identical to the one Quinn had handed off to her on Dantooine—and turned it over in his hands.

Mara stared into the faces of unrecognizable beings. The headshots gazed through her with unfocused eyes. She swiped through, each hologram coded with a different term. A Twi’lek named Sinya Chee; shaded red; terminated. A human woman; Madge Wrev; washed in yellow; deterred. After skimming through several deterred or terminated beings, Mara opened her mouth to question why Mando had insisted on drawing her attention to the collection of strangers. A man with wild white hair, a matching mustache and eyes filled with stories appeared and sent a zap of lighting down her spine. Tanian Burris. He was covered in a shroud of red. Terminated. A silver Twi’lek appeared next; their eyes colder than she’d ever seen them; washed in the staple glowing white of the hologram. _Wanted_. Her heart turned to ash and fell through her fingers. “This is the Collective…” Mara whispered. “It’s gone.”

“The Collective is _evolving,_ Mars.”

If a voice could travel like a gust of wind and pummel through a person, this one did. The current wrapped around Mara and forced her to turn around. The remnants of a sandstorm whirled in front of her. The woman's cheekbones protruded through colorless skin. Her eyes were wide, glassy, and rimmed with dark circles. Her hair was a little longer, a little thinner. But none of that mattered. Mara pulled Scoria into her arms, and tears of relief, of fear, of comfort stung at the back of her eyes. The scratch of her Madam’s uniform rubbed against her cheek, and without even meaning to, Mara fell into a mixture of staccato chuckles and rambles in a way she hadn’t since she was a child. “I came here to find you! I knew I’d…I knew I’d find you! Lex, that bastard—that _bastard spy_ set us up and I was just down in the dungeons, but you were gone! I thought they killed you! How did you escape?”

“Mara, pay attention.” Mando’s voice, muffled from Mara’s excitement, suddenly rang out.

She turned to see the warrior with his blaster drawn—ready to fire at Scoria. “What are you doing? Stop. This is—this is my—” Mara trailed off as she fully became swept up in the storm before her. She was wearing a black uniform with a red-lined cape draped over her shoulders. Identical to the stack of corpses she had left in the hallway only minutes before. Identical to Cam Lex. Scoria stared down emotionless. Her eyes were dilated and wild. Her face was structured and carved identically into a version of Scoria that tore curtains off of walls. A version of Scoria who survived the Empire. This was the doppelgänger. The Clone. Someone who Mars had met once before.

“How did you escape, Scoria?” Mara repeated, so unintentionally soft that heat rose into her cheeks.

Scoria, a glint of madness shining in her eyes, ignored Mara. She slowly turned to the Mandalorian and tilted her head. “You must be Din Djarin. It’s nice to finally meet you."

Mara was so distracted by the gusts of wind pushing her backward that she almost didn't catch it. Before she could turn to face the Mandalorian, Scoria's storm carried her back. She tilted her head at the child. "And there's the asset. It’s so much…smaller than I imagined. I’ve heard it packs a punch though.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth.

The Mandalorian stiffened, and slowly pushed the child back so that he was hidden underneath the cape. But the warrior took a step forward, staring down his blaster and honing in on his target. “You’re working with Gideon.” Mara dumbly stated, the realization turning her to ice. “You betrayed the Collective…and me.”

The sandstorm woman—the Clone—Scoria—scoffed, and shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. You are not the Collective. I haven’t betrayed _you_. Everything I’m doing is _for_ you.”

A tall, pale shape emerged from the hallway. Black hair was pressed tight to his scalp and cowardly eyes quickly switched from blank indifference to panic upon seeing Scoria’s company. Lex drew his blaster. “Put your weapon down, Mandalorian!” He squealed, his accent rushed through the syllables.

Mara, retreating ever so slightly back into her dark room, watched herself lift her own gun. The claws pulled her back into her own body. Scoria rolled her eyes, and with an exasperated sigh, she took aim on the kid. A foolish tear escaped and fell down Mara’s cheek. “Do what he says, and we can all walk out of here unscathed.” Scoria commanded. “And drop _everything_ in your hands, Mando.”

Slowly, he knelt down and placed the holoprojector at his feet. He turned the blaster in his hand, and hung it from his forefinger by the trigger guard. As she holstered her blaster, Mara wasn’t even sure she could speak, and was surprised when she heard her own voice. “After everything, you’re with them. You went back to the Empire.”

“I’m utilizing the Empire, _sure_.” Scoria said, she smiled a little too wide. “Because I had a realization! We can stop all of this and have peace. We just have to work _together._ Gideon has made that possible. We can stop fighting, Mars!”

A sliver of a gift that Viv had given her being spoken in tones of traitorous madness nearly caused Mara to fall to her knees. “Don’t call me that,” she cautioned, failing to keep her voice steady. “What are you even talking about?”

Scoria nodded quickly, and motioned to the Mandalorian. “Gideon has the ability to give the syndicates what they need to be better for the Workers! And _you_ made it possible! We just have to give him the asset.”

Mara fell back on her heels. Mando’s visor stayed fixed on her. She studied him closely. Scoria’s ultimatum tasted familiar. It tasted like Destrie’s mouth. Like his reassurances that change _would_ come; if only she gave the Overlords some grace; if only she was patient; if only she was easier to work with; if only she was willing to make a few sacrifices for the greater good.

“We don’t have time for this!” Lex yelled, quickly switching his aim from the Mandalorian to Mara. Scoria waved him off, unconcerned by his buzzing panic.

“Gideon gets the kid, and you can guarantee that Workers will be free?” Mara asked waving off the spy and furrowing her eyebrows. Mando tilted his helmet like he was silently pleading with her, or maybe he was warning her. She couldn't tell.

Lex threw his hands in the air, and Scoria ignored him. “We just want the Workers to have the resources they need to see the freedom the Syndicates can give them! And protection. You know working is dangerous, they can keep you safe. Instead of forcing you all to be soldiers, we can train you to see the freedom you _have_ and _can have_. I was too narrow-minded. They helped me see the choice we had.”

Mara faced the Clone of Scoria Karaay now, turning her back to Mando and his foundling. The woman was manic and heavy with memories that were too loud, too angry to quiet down. She carried something with her, something empty. Mara’s tears still begged to fall, and funnily enough, she found herself teetering the line of desperately wanting to embrace the Clone; whether it was by pulling her into a hug or wrapping her hands around her throat—Mara still wasn’t sure.

“That’s not freedom.” Mara said weakly. “We could find another way. No Collective or Empire or Syndicates. We can choose _that_. Fight for _that_. There can be honor in survival. Sometimes we’re not given the choice we need. But we have to choose it anyway. _You_ said that, remember?”

“Oh, _please._ You stupid woman! Scoria, let’s get the asset and _go_!” Lex growled.

But there was a flicker of Scoria behind the Clone’s eyes. The sandstorm woman returned for a single glimpse, and foolish Hope flew erupted its own ashes, flying straight into the atmosphere. But Scoria was gone almost as quickly as she appeared. “Then this is too big for you. You should have stayed with Viv.” The Clone said in an eerie sing-song voice. She dragged a finger across Mara’s jawline causing her to flinch away from the touch, and Hope was shot straight out of the sky.

Mara expelled a breath that quaked from impending explosion. “Viv’s dead. He died trying to save _you_.” She snarled. The floor of the Resort was about to fall out of the sky. How Mara wished the Resort would just fall out of the sky; anything to make all of this freeze in time.

Scoria shook her head. “If that’s the choice he made; he died a fool, Mars.”

A guttural growl escaped Mara’s throat. “Don’t call me _Mars_!” Rage drenched each word and Mara fought back against the Empty as it tried to drag her into a dark room behind glass. She cocked her staff to life and slammed the blade against the threshold right by Scoria’s head; small bolts of electricity cracked around the Clone. She calmly backed away from the currents. Lex cowered, letting out an involuntary whimper.

“I thought I taught you both better. I taught you and Viv to survive—no matter the cost. I must have failed.” Scoria said with a tired sigh, her eyes flicking across the room a little too rapidly to match the slow measured gate of her voice.

Lex vibrated from agitation and fear. He took a step forward. “Scoria! Stop entertaining the whore! We have what we need _right_ here! Take it!”

“I’d like to see you try.” The Mandalorian hissed.

“You’re both cowards!” Mara yelled, and the entire room, station, and planet was saturated in sickly crimson.

She drew her blaster and took aim on the spy. The metallic squeal of shots firing rang out from every direction. Lex, his forehead marked by the dark, smoking wound that killed him, collapsed onto the ground. A glowing hole was seared through Scoria’s shoulder. Her weapon still raised as she studied her injury.

Mara hardly noticed any part of the incident though. She was staring at a red glowing laser from Scoria’s blaster. The beam was frozen, mid-air, inches from Mara’s chest; so close, that she could feel the heat and vibrations that the bolt emitted into the air.Almost as if it took on a mind of its own, the shot redirected and darted into the window. If it hadn’t left behind a dark scar and a web of cracks in the glass, the entire scene could have been passed off as a trick of the eye. “You were going to kill me,” Mara blurted out, still dazed by the inexplicable.

Scoria, or at least a version of Scoria that had existed decades prior—stared down at her with a grief-stricken stare. “Alyx? _Alyx_ , I am so sorry.” She was whispering and reached out a trembling hand. The blaster fell to the ground, and she watched it clamber across the floor like she was horrified that she'd held it or pulled the trigger. “Please...Please, forgive me. I didn’t—”

Before Mara could even blink back her own persistent tears, the Madame’s words got lodged in her throat. Her mouth opened like she was trying to draw in a large breath, but all that she could manage were wet chokes and useless attempts for air. She clawed her own neck so hard, that her nails left behind trails of red. Her dark, panicked eyes darted behind Mara, and she followed suit. The child had a small hand raised into a fist. His large features scrunched up angrily.

Gravity shifted, and so had Mara’s world. The Empty reached out a hand and offered her a quiet, solitary place to rest. And as always, acting like she had a choice in the matter, she fell into its cold embrace. 

—

The Imperial Admiral backed into the hallway and folded over, wheezing for air. The child had enough strength to redirect a blaster and bring the woman to her knees, but frankly, the Mandalorian was trying not to fixate on how close Mara had come to a cindering hole in her chest. His reflexes could get him but so far, and apparently that meant Scoria’s betrayal would only be punished with asphyxiation and a wounded shoulder.

He could have killed the Imp, but doing so felt like another betrayal in itself. While Mara was being cut open, she still looked upon the Admiral like a monument. Even gripped with rage, she couldn’t hide the admiration that the anger had split open and grown from. But now, shock had molded her into her own dead eyed statue, staring tearfully at the woman gasping on the ground while holding up her blaster; frozen in the position to fire it. She retreated back into the reality that didn’t exist in any accessible realm. The child released his invisible clutches just as Scoria fell unconscious. “You could have sold us out, and you didn’t. Thank you.” Mando said, trying to think of anything to bring Mara back.

He hadn’t been worried about his ability to keep the kid safe even in the moment when Mara looked back at him like she was pondering the Admiral’s offer. But he didn’t want to snuff out burning amber. She looked at him without really looking _at_ him; instead staring at the air between them. “I’m done making sacrifices for them.” She said simply.

Mando heard the thuds before he saw the shape of the Storm Troopers marching through the hall in their direction. Mara didn’t respond to the sound of approaching footsteps; she was gone. Hastily, he picked up the spy’s holoprojector to shove into his pocket and grabbed Mara by the arm. Before she could protest or shrug him off, he slammed a grav charge against the largest window, and pulled them both into the hallway, stepping over the Spy and the Imp. He pulled Mara against him and waited until the ground rumbled beneath their feet like it was about to send them soaring down through the atmosphere.

The ground shook. The glass shattered. A hot force barreled out of the spy’s lab. And the Admiral began to twist and hoarsely groan out a name that Mando didn't recognize. He was too focused on the thuds of approaching footsteps to even realize Mara had been pulling back from his grip. “Wait, Mando!” She said, watching as Scoria reached for her neck. “Not yet, just let me…I—”

His hand came down over her mouth to keep her from finishing the sentence. Amber eyes darkened. Despite all she had endured in such a short amount of time, the Mandalorian didn't have the grace to sympathize with her. He twisted Mara around to see the squad of storm troopers beginning to run in their direction. “Pick your battles.” He whispered, and just as the first soldier stepped foot through the threshold of Lex’s lab, he held onto Mara, checked on the child, and ignited his jet pack so they could fall into the clouds.

There were only a few Imps to pick off as they dropped down in front of the Razor Crest. Mando took care of them with ease before the hatch had slammed against the ground. By the time they were flying back to Cloud City, the sun was high.

The afternoon sky was too vibrant, too beautifully wrapped in white clouds to match the madness that was just unleashed in the courtyard of the Resort. There was something to be said for the skill of the Squad Leader and her fighters. But in any situation, ten against eighty was an impossible victory. She had sped off to return to their fortress with the fighters who survived, and Mando had told Mara this, but she just nodded her affirmative. He worried the foreboding caution lingering in the air had deafened her.

The glare of the sun on the metal fortress was blinding as the Fortress approached; tucked invisibly in the middle of a lively city. Mara didn’t wait for the ramp to reach the ground before leaping down toward the door camouflaged in the towering walls. “Cas,” Mara pleaded into her comlink, “Cas, I’m here. Open up.”

Part of the shining metal shifted, and opened up into smokey darkness. Without any hesitation, Mara let it absorb her, and Mando followed. The hallway was drained of all light. The fixtures were blown out of the walls. The main hall had the benefit of its glass ceiling, but smoke still hung heavy in the air and casted the objects tossed across the floor into barely recognizable, hazy silhouettes. One of them in the distance started to move. Mara and Mando both raised their blasters, but the profile melted into Cas. Her clothes were stained with blood and tears were pouring out of murderous eyes.

“Cas…what happened?” Mara asked.

The Twi’lek gestured toward everything, smoke wafted and circulated around her arms from the motion. “I got here with what was left of my squads…and they were gone. We lost everyone.” She hissed.

Mando flipped his visual settings in his helmet, and the objects on the floor turned bright, glowing red. Bodies were everywhere. Part of him hoped Mara hadn’t had the same realization, but her eyes were already locking onto each shape, running slowly over the contours of the soft outlines. “What do we do now?” She whispered.

Cas scoffed, and shook her head. For several moments, the Twi’lek stared down at her shoes as she thought of her answer. “What do you mean? _We_ _lost everyone._ Lex set us up! It’s over.”

“No, it’s Scoria…she’s—she’s helping them. We have to fight back. I have no—I have no where to go, Cas.” Mara’s hands shook as she grabbed the Twi’lek by the wrist.

The Mandalorian felt like an intruder; an unwilling witness to a Revolution’s demise, and a woman’s entire world with it. Cas laughed darkly and shook off Mara’s grip. “Then there we have it! Don’t be naive! There is no fight anymore! They won! If you’re smart, you’ll move on like the rest of us.”

The Twi’lek threw her hands above her head, and swung around to disappear into the haze. Mara was pacing across the room the moment Cas was out of sight. Every time she passed one of the shapes on the floor, her eyes would lock onto them, she’d pause for a moment, and then she’d start pacing again. Guilt gnawed relentlessly at cell bars. Its insidious calls begged the Mandalorian for release. _You should have told her about Gideon. You should have left her in that Brothel. You should have—_

“Settle down. You’re okay.” He said, catching Mara by her shoulder.

“I know I’m okay. That’s the problem. I came all this way and it’s just _over._ Scoria—she...Did you see how she looked at me? She didn’t even know where she was. She didn’t even know—” Mara was rambling, unraveling with every word, “I need to—I need to…What do I even _base_ this off of? I don’t know what to do. I don’t know—”

The Mandalorian had already seen Mara in all her forms. She was cinder covering magma. He’d watched her simmer and boil and explode and cool down. She’d been freed, had hope grow in front of her, and watched it get dragged away. She was thrown into a rebellion only for it to fizzle out, and then betrayed by the person who she fought so hard to find. While leaving an unraveling, time bomb of a woman seemed like the most comfortable outcome for the Mandalorian—the ability to do so felt impossible.

He let go of her wrist. “You could…come with us.”

Mara laughed sarcastically, the sound erupted from her maniacally. She looked like she was about to cry. He hoped she wouldn’t. “What a horrible idea. Look at what we did to an entire revolution!” She motioned toward the shapes on the floor.

“The Collective died because of the Syndicates and Gideon. Not us.”

“I was the reason they joined forces, though. It’s _me_. Everyone I know ends up in bed with the Empire or dead.” She buried her face in her hands.

If she hadn’t hurled the accusation with such sincerity, and if she didn’t have tears in her eyes, Mando would have probably had to stifle back a laugh at her dramatics. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t have the stomach for Imps, and I have a feeling we can survive you.”

There was a long enough pause as Mara pondered the offer that instead of his usual acceptance of silence, the Mandalorian actually continued on. “Listen. I could use a partner for back up. To help around the ship. If your Workers mobilize again and you’re ready, I’ll bring you back. No questions asked. Or you can stay here.”

When Mara finally nodded, the crowded cells boiled over in taunts and threats. 

Mando lead her back into Razor Crest while echoes of contempt bounced around in his helmet. He grasped the spy’s holoprojector tight in his fist, and stared at the command for a moment before pressing the button that would launch the transmission into space where it’d hopefully find a silver Twi’lek. The Mandalorian wasn’t sure if he did so to spite Guilt and the crowded cells or because, if it ended up in the right hands, the recording could very well be the last hope for a dying revolution.


	15. A Distraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: disassociation

An idle mind is easily bewitched by fear. So Mara put herself to work. The Empty was there, of course, whispering to her and extending its hand. But leaning into its embrace again meant the Resort, the Collective, the Clone of Scoria Karaay were real. It meant that she had more memories, failures, and heartaches to give it strength. And so, rather than walking hand in hand, Mara exiled it to linger only as close as her shadow. The Empty followed, waiting patiently for her to look to it again.

She was leaned back in the co-pilot’s chair, meticulously cleaning her blaster. Scoria’s maddened eyes flashed in the reflection of the dislodged barrel. Like the dark residue from the gas cartridge, she wiped the vision away with a rag. Bodies hidden by smoke laid in the curves of the trigger guard. Mara turned the weapon over to hide them.

Her knuckles were swollen and bandaged from a single meaningless moment of forgetfulness. Dexterity was the price for carelessness. Her movements were slower, clumsier, and a little more pronounced from having to work around the cushioning that formed around her joints. Metal is stronger than bone. She’d forgotten that. As it turns out, the mind could convince one that bone is practically indestructible when their vision is shrouded in red and has begun tunneling inward.

Several days before, Mara was carried on the Razor Crest in cold arms, but the moment it let her go, the air turned crimson. There were two pairs of extinct eyes hiding in the dark parts of her peripheral; eyes she’d never see again. When the Mandalorian retreated to the cockpit, Mara decided Bespin was not the smoke from a God’s pipe, but was a planet inlaid in an expanding mushroom cloud; hanging in the center of a frozen apocalyptic explosion. And she hated the place.

But bone could break. Crack. Crush. That slipped Mara’s mind when her only company was the metal walls, her hands, and the memory of the Clone’s eyes; the memory of a shot that should have killed her; the memory of an entire revolution disintegrating inside a cap of smoke and flying debris. So she slammed her fist into metal, and nearly cried out from the jagged jolt of pain that shot up to her shoulder. Since then, Mara kept her mind busy so she wouldn’t stare back into the Empty. Walking in the footprints left behind by the Mandalorian, she helped maintain his ancient ship, restock rations and supplies, and watch over the child in necessary moments of solitude.

The work was constant—something always went wrong. Mando was insistent on speed and relied heavily on hyperspace for safety in their travels. Mara didn’t pay any mind to the tactic until they were traveling sublight two days ago. A shot from a ship’s laser canon barely skimmed the side of the Crest, but the impact nearly jolted Mara out of her seat. “Damn bounty hunters.” Mando grumbled.

The comlink rang out with a nasally voice. “That was your only warning. Hand over the child, and—” Mando slammed his fist into the comlink’s control to shut it off. Mara almost felt sorry for the bounty hunter when the Crest spun around with speed that seemed contradictory to its age. She shut her eyes tight, trying to keep the contents of her stomach inside her body, and Mando fired; reducing the small hunter’s ship into glowing debris destined to float through the galaxy for eternity.

Mara indulged herself in the diversion that was the Mandalorian. Regardless of all they’d endured together, all the destruction they’d caused, somehow the echoes of the past didn’t reflect off of beskar. And she took advantage of that. Shamelessly, she’d study him and find comfort in his persistent calm. He didn’t seem to mind; she didn’t miss how his visor locked onto her in moments that only strengthened the distraction of him ten-fold.

She even allowed herself to smile for the first time when she stumbled upon Mando lying on his back in his sleeping quarters with the kid perched on his chest plate. With wonder, the child stared into the helmet. He was babbling passionately and Mando nodded along like he could understand every incoherent syllable.

“Captivating conversation?” Mara had asked, the smile was exhausting to maintain so she allowed it to fade.

“Better than most.” Mando responded, refusing to tear himself away from his foundling.

Her knuckles cracked now, rubbing raw against each other as she turned the gun in her hands. Finding no remnants of the apocalyptic planet hidden in its cartridges. The child was nodding off beside her and Mara set the gun and stained rag aside to pull him into her arms. She descended the ladder so that he could sleep in peace and he snuggled comfortably into his makeshift hammock.

Time passed differently in hyperspace. Light speed evaporated it right out of the air. Only the heavy lurch of returning to sublight would force time to steadily move forward again. Mara pondered this as she tried to remember the last time she had eaten, and so she gathered a few rations and carried them with her into the cockpit. She dropped a portion and a canteen onto Mando’s lap.

“We’re stopping for fuel soon.” He said, flipping on autopilot and turning to face her.

“Why are we bypassing Savareen again? I wasn’t really paying—”

“Cara’s wrapped up with a bounty. Needs a little back up. Shouldn’t take long.”

Mando danced around the quest to find the Jedi. While there was determination and intention behind every one of his decisions, there was always a magnetic pull toward other priorities. She knew he’d never admit to that. But even when it went unclaimed, love had a way of latching on; maybe disguising itself as hesitation, or distraction, or side quests, but nevertheless, it never let go. “It’s so out of the way though?” Mara pressed. Could she trick him into claiming it? 

“I owe it to her.” He replied evenly.

She couldn’t.

Mara nodded, unsure how to respond. “I’ll leave so you can eat.”

“You can stay, it’s fine.” He said, lifting his helmet just enough to take a sip of water.

Mara almost turned away; she wasn’t sure exactly whether he was entirely human or just near-human, but the simple action of drinking was the most organic and natural action she’d seen from him that didn’t revolve around his foundling. She took a bite of dried meat and dramatically scoffed. “Since when have you become so _indecent?_ I thought my days in a brothel were behind me!”

Mando tilted his helmet at her. _The Mandalorian eye roll_. She smiled despite herself, despite the weight it took to lift her mouth. How strong was this distraction? Maybe Scoria—the real Scoria, the one who had disappeared in the walls of the Resort—had been right about desire. Maybe Mara had just looked at it backwards. Desire could be utilized, not to manipulate or to provide an advantage, but as a distraction to indulge in. She’d done so countless times before without even realizing; numbed her own pain with the pleasure of others. Suddenly, her smile felt a little lighter. “Have you ever been to one before?”

Mando froze. His grip tightening around the canteen like he was stuck in the position. Quickly, catching back up to the present, he set the rations aside. “A brothel?” He clarified.

Mara nodded, resting her chin on her hand. “No.” He asserted.

“Would you?” Her eyebrow raised in amusement.

“No.” He stood, and Mara worried he’d disappear down the ladder. But instead, Mando leaned against the threshold of the cockpit’s entrance. She’d seen him do so dozens of times when he needed to stand for a bit and break the mundanity of sitting in the pilot’s chair for too long.

He looked down on her. She wondered if he’d been studying her as she had him. So Mara stood too, pressing her back against the opposite side of the doorway. “Why not?” She asked.

“It’s not my—” Mando started, before shaking his head, “Why are we discussing this?”

Staring into the Mandalorian’s visor, Mara thought she could almost see a hint of a man behind the tinted glass. She leaned into him the slightest bit, an action that used to be a habitual part of her day. Weeks of unprecedented and horrifying events made the familiarity of the gesture feel refreshing. “It’s just sex, Mando.” She whispered sarcastically. “I’ve heard your Creed says nothing of it.”

He mimicked her; leaning so far forward that her breath fogged up the front of his helmet. “You’re right. It doesn’t.” He matched her tone.

Surprised, Mara took a bold step forward. He straightened as she ran her fingers along the edge of his chest plate, closing the gap between them. She searched the beskar for any semblance of refusal, any sign of hesitation. But she only saw two distant, amber eyes in the tinted darkness. Her fingers wrapped around the ridge of the armor and the plate clicked out of its place. Mando remained still, his helmet rotating on hinges, watching her.

The chest plate fell to the ground with a loud clatter. And she took her time inching toward the man underneath the metal. Behind the warrior. Each slow action involuntarily took her farther away, drifting into a dark room. She watched herself through a pane of glass, and the clock turned back. She was in Keyorin draped in velvet and expecting to hear someone drop down onto her balcony.

Mara’s hands reached down and unbuckled his ammo belt. The leather slid off of him and coiled at their feet. Mara barely heard it. “Your timing is a little…complicated.” Mando finally cut through.

“What do you mean?” She heard herself ask.

“The Collective, the Fortress, Scoria.” He managed, and Mara ran her hands over his chest, hoping he’d be too distracted to continue speaking. “I just brought you on as my…” He trailed off just as Mara felt her hands glide down his stomach.

“I don’t want to think about all of that right now. I just want you.” The words escaped her mouth as nothing more than a whisper.

“You‘re distracting yourself.” He said, smoother than she’d expected.

Mara was foggy, but content as she pressed her forehead against his sternum. “It’s just sex, Din.” She heard herself whisper, focusing a little too much on how his name felt rolling off of her tongue. She wasn’t sure whether she’d breached a boundary. There were no set guidelines in place on whether she could utilize a name that she’d found out without his permission. But before it even had a moment to linger in the air, a warm, bare hand reached around and slid under her shirt to glide across her back. He pulled her close.

She was numbed by the sounds of his breath catching sharply in the modulator when her hands, delicately digging passed the fabric of his trousers, finally found his skin. Feeling his desire. Feeling touched. Wanted. Anything at all. In a dark room, Mara cheered herself on. For the first time in days, the pain wasn’t gnawing at her ribcage. The Empty wasn’t nipping at her heels and threatening to wrap around her ankles. The automations kicked in, and her body took over as it always had before.

Her eyes closed as his hand gently slid passed the waistline of her pants. “Look at me.” He commanded breathlessly.

Mara’s gaze flickered up at him for a moment. Her smile flashed back at her before she rocked into him and shut her eyes to fall into darkness again. They both surrendered to long-awaited touch. Or so Mara had thought.“ _Look_ at me.” He demanded again.

She met her own stare in the visor. Din’s gloveless hand retreated. He brushed the side of her face and Mara watched her body lean into the caress. “If we are going to do this, I’d like you to _be_ here.” She heard him say.

The dark room with the dirty windows no longer felt all that vacant. An intruder was by her side, watching her, noticing her. Mara saw herself shake her head and the trespasser saw too. “What?” Her voice sounded a little muffled. “I don’t know what you mean. I _am_ here.”

“No you’re not.” He whispered.

Mara slammed her fists against the panes of glass. Willing them to shatter. To crush, crack, break. But as it turns out, sometimes—similar to metal—glass is stronger than bone. And these windows were definitely stronger than a mind searching for distraction as a desperate means to persevere. Mara stared into her own blank gaze in the Mandalorian’s visor, knowing he was correct. Knowing, somehow, he knew she was stuck behind glass, tucked away, and letting her body do the work. And he wanted her back.

Mara turned to her invader in the dark room. He was leaned against the black wall; the dying light shining back at her from bouncing and refracting off his beskar.

Her brow furrowed, and a steady heat settled thick behind her cheeks. Mara’s wandering hands returned to her side. She pressed her fingers into her eyes like she was trying to hide from the shame of being caught functioning on autopilot. “Wait, no…No, I’m not rejecting you.” Din strained.

The glass might have thickened. Mara couldn’t be so sure. She’d never tried to actively escape the room before. But there was no response she could have managed. There were no words to describe the feeling and discomfort of merely being noticed. So Mara wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shoulder. Din stiffened from the embrace, but when Mara didn’t let go, his hand traveled upward and settled around the back of her neck.

Time didn’t pass in hyperspace. It evaporated out of the air, and the stars ate it all up. When autopilot shifted the engines out of hyperdrive and they returned to sublight, the ship lurched forward. Mara nearly lost her balance, but a steady arm held her upright, refusing to let her fall. “We’re here.” Din said softly. “I should get ready for landing. Maybe you should get some rest.”

Time returned to its ceaseless pace. And Mara let him go, hoping that the stars left something behind—that they didn’t eat up everything.

She didn’t watch this planet emerge like she had the others. By the time the landing gear activated, her body stopped moving on its own. With the return of clarity came the return of shame. Mara practically doubled over on the floor in embarrassment from splaying herself open; the feeling was too new for her. Sex was business. Sex was the least complicated thing in the galaxy. And years of encountering humans and near-humans in their most vulnerable states had left her jaded and calloused over. But right now, she was filled to the brim with the taunting calls of shame.

She curled up in the Mandalorian’s sleeping quarters and tried to keep herself from thumbing over the encounter. Sleep wouldn’t come. The Empty felt more appealing now. She almost missed feeling nothing at all.

Mara tried to stay out of Mando’s way for the following day. And given the space—or lack thereof—that was a difficult endeavor. Any brief encounter brought her clumsiness out of her. She tripped over sentences, fumbled through her movements, and avoided the taunting reminder of the cockpit’s entrance. Mando didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t say anything about it. Mara was grateful for his silence either way.

The engines rumbled and shifted as they entered a new atmosphere. When Mando jumped down with his foundling and lowered the hatch, Mara thought she had located enough of her composure and tightened her holster around her waist. Cool night air flooded into the ship. She was vibrating with nerves when he loaded the child into his pram and came to her side. “About yesterday…I know you didn’t bring me along to complicate things.” Mara blurted out, the words jumbled together. Mando faced her but she found she couldn’t do the same, so she spoke into the night air. “The last thing I want to do is torment you. I’m so sorry.”

“Torment me?” He asked, not turning away from her.

“I shouldn’t have—I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’m—” Mara stammered, grimacing at her own pathetic attempt to justify her actions.

“I can take it.”

Mara opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out, she had all but forgotten how to use her own voice. When the instinct finally kicked back in, the Mandalorian was already walking into the night.

The vast tundra stretched out so far that the horizon and the sky were permanently fused together. It was the type of place that forced perspective onto its visitors. The wind whipped by, singing, _“You are so very small.”_ The humming pram and the crunch of dirt under their boots were the only sounds to bounce through the boundless land. Stars were blinking awake, and they sauntered into a village that was carved straight out of bedrock. Mara had hoped her shame was left in the Razor Crest, but she was still deafened by its cries; she almost missed the howls and cheers of gambling.

An open, stone arena encompassed by multiple levels of seating lay at the heart of the town. Beings of all species were beginning to surround the structure, making it beat to the rhythm of the lively crowd. There was a betting station tucked underneath the seating where the rowdiest of the beings gathered, hooting and hollering over each other as a moderator tried to translate all of them at the same time.

Cara Dune was leaned against the entrance to the structure. She was easy to find, her stoicism stood against the excited vibrations of the beings flooding into their seats. Mara had forgotten how arresting her presence was. Cara’s face fell when her eyes met Mara’s as if shame hadn’t already been yelling in her ear. Could she turn around and go back to the ship? Did she have to be here?

The Bounty Hunter and the Mandalorian shared a brief greeting that was about as friendly as they both were capable of before Mara’s presence was acknowledged.

“You still being around isn’t a good sign.” Cara frowned. “You still trying to find your revolution?”

Mara opened her mouth to explain, but she came up short. The battle and betrayal flooded her mind. Wreckage and havoc were left behind from its wake. Mara shook her head solemnly, and changed the subject. “Who are we betting on?”

Cara launched into the bounty she had been tracking for days in the village. He kept an increasingly low profile as of late—probably suspecting he had gotten a hit in the Guild. But he still answered the seductive calls of the bet, and continued to frequent the arena every night. She ignited a bounty puck that illuminated the shape of an imposing human man. His face was stuck in a permanent snarl. The bounty hunters discussed Cara’s failed attempts to maneuver around the quarry’s posse of large Gamorreans that nobly and blindly followed him. There was another overzealous bounty hunter who she’d paired off with, but they were outnumbered at every turn. Her partner ended up with an axe in his back.

A bell rang out and bounced along the stone structure. Beings filed into their seats, and they caught sight of the quarry and his Gamorreans stumbling into a section of their own. He was loudly laughing and pulled a giggling woman with a silver glint reflecting off of her temple onto his lap. The two fighters began to pummel each other in the arena to a thunderous roar of applause. It was absolutely barbaric. And Mara couldn’t tear her eyes away, or keep the smile from sneaking across her face.

“Here’s what I know,” Cara said, pulling Mara away from the spectacle, “Tomorrow morning, he and his minions are moving on to a new village to follow the games. I want to ambush ‘em as they’re leaving. They’ll be distracted, and hungover, and won’t see us coming. Can the Rebel fight?”

There was a long moment before Mara realized the two bounty hunters were looking at her. _Oh,_ I’m _the Rebel. S_ he scoffed, feeling a little too proud that Cara had given her a nickname, “Can I _fight_?” Mara gestured to Mando. “You saw me take him down on Nevarro.”

The Mandalorian shook his head with a sigh and Cara raised an eyebrow. “This will be different. These guys will kill you if given the chance.” She replied.

“Don’t worry about me.” Mara turned back to the brawl.

Cara snickered under her breath. “Alright, no need to get defensive.”

There was another loud clang of a bell, and two more fighters with large staffs took to the arena as an unconscious man was dragged out of the ring. The quarry’s loud laughter cut through the crowd. Mara recognized him. She’d seen this type of man stumble through the brothel nearly every night. They had a boisterous bravado and an undeservedly large ego that would crack at any blow. The Gamorrean guards were true to character.

Mara scanned the crowd, mostly out of fascination, to identify what kind of men the fights would attract. A figure with sandy blond hair and a serpent’s mouth caught her eye. Alcohol poured cold and stinging over the hole in her chest. He was watching the fight. His intense green eyes narrowed, and he absentmindedly rubbed a couple of credits together in his fingers. Did he touch Viv’s trembling hands and porcelain-smooth skin so gently?


	16. Torment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: murder, violence, grief

Din suffered over the definition of “torment.” Linguistically, the meaning of words could change as they shifted through cultures and the valence of connotations. The galaxy was filled with words that meant one thing on Tatooine and then something entirely different on Naboo. Maybe on Keyorin, “torment” fell victim to that transition. Because Mara couldn’t possibly believe touching her skin caused him agony. That hearing her say his name—his real name—like it tasted good could inflict anything close to misery.

The cells fell into a moment’s silence when she put her hands on him. If Mara needed a distraction, Din didn’t mind playing the role, even after the lessons he probably should have learned from. But then he got a glimpse of her eyes. She looked as she had when he’d first seen her letting a smuggler mouth at her neck. She looked as she had when she spoke of her dead friend. She looked as she had when she paced through the smoke of destruction on Bespin. Sunken away.

She tore herself away and Din wished she hadn’t. And she spent the next day uncharacteristically and awkwardly navigating the space between them. But _torment_ was still the farthest thing from his mind. Until she accused herself of it. And he couldn’t get the damn word out of his head.

Bells rang out in the arena, and the clash of spears echoed through the village. Cara turned around on her heel with the intention of leading them to her campsite. Mara was locked onto something across the ring. And he wondered if she was gone again, but amber was on fire. She was not staring at the empty air, her eyes were honed in on a target. She took a determined step. Mando caught her arm. “We’re leaving.”

Mara nodded rapidly, absentmindedly. “Oh, sure. Yeah. Lead the way.”

Cara built a fire while she listened to Mando’s update on Gideon and the Syndicate. He stepped around Mara’s revolution, and the Imperial Admiral who betrayed her. She shook her head and leaned back against a rock. “Maybe the New Republic should just wipe out the syndicates and the entire industry all at once.”

The crackling fire sent tiny embers into the sky to disappear into oblivion. Mara had been fixated on the cinders getting absorbed into the stars, but her head snapped toward them. “The industry isn’t the problem.” She rebutted. 

Mando sat back, ready to watch sparks fly from her. Cara crinkled her brow, almost sympathetically. “Do you not feel at all…” She trailed off.

Mara shrunk back, curling into herself. “How I feel is no one’s business. That’s _mine_. Either way, I’m no less of a living, breathing woman than you are.”

There was no delay in Cara’s resolute nod. “Of course. I just don’t see how its worth all this…trouble just to get a few guys off. What is there to defend?”

“Because it’s an ancient industry; it helped settle planets, you know? It won’t go away, so it should be put back in control of the Workers. We protect our own. We don’t just _get a few guys off._ It’s a craft, but for too many...it's a means of survival. The syndicates enslaving us are the problem. Not the workers themselves or our clients.” She retorted.

He shoved back the memory of how she felt in his hands. Cara rolled her eyes and waved Mara off. “You lost me at the settling planets part.”

Mara sat up straight, and Mando worried she’d erupt. She didn’t. “I mean, it was _long_ ago; back when explorers and miners were starting to expand outward. Brothels kick started the economies of newly settled cities. Workers bought land, put credits back into their communities...”

Shaking her head, Cara huffed out a breath of air. “There’s no way.”

“Accept it or don’t, but there will always be a demand for sex work regardless of your moral code. We’re all just trying to connect or feel something or have a little fun. We’re so quick to shame each other, but the galaxy is a lonely place.” Mara returned to watching the fire spit embers out into the atmosphere.

Mando had never thought about brothels or syndicates or workers until Mara had dropped onto his speeder bike. But regardless of the Collective’s state, she carried her Revolution everywhere she went. It swirled around her like smoke and flame. Cara noticed it too, and she smiled at Mara like he’d never seen before.

When they settled in for the night and stopped bickering over politics and justice, Mando decided that sleep wasn’t going to happen. He had accepted that with a certain level of indifference, and settled upon getting acquainted with this planet’s stars. The kid was pressed against his side, and while the steady rhythm of his breathing provided some calm, there was no escaping the tireless remnants of Mara's torment. And whatever that word means to her.

The stars rotated slowly across the sky, and his sound enhancers picked up shuffling. Mando shifted his gaze to Mara. Amber eyes studied Cara closely and finally turned to him. When she believed he was asleep, Mara gracefully rose to her feet, picked up her staff, and lightly tiptoed out of the camp toward the village. Her figured disappeared into the darkness, and Mando stood. Cara shook awake, her eyes darting toward the spot where Mara was supposed to be sleeping. “You’ve got your hands full, huh?”She groggily slurred.

“You mind keeping the kid for a bit?” He asked, grabbing his rifle, and setting the child in his pram.

Cara rolled over. “As long as he’s sleeping, it’s fine by me.”

Mara wandered into darkness, and Din followed. He let her walk far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to detect his presence behind her. The tundra wasn’t the ideal place to track anyone. There were no places to hide if he were to be noticed. In truth, it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d caught him, but curiosity had already taken root; vines grew and spreadand tangled and became impossible to ignore.

By the time he made it to the village, Mara was barreling after a tall, staggering figure with greasy blonde hair was tied back out of his way. He hollered out to a few men about their previous bets. Mara ducked behind a speeder bike as he spoke to the other gamblers. Squeezing her eyes shut, she measuredly inhaled and exhaled like she was catching her breath. The man waved off the others and she trailed just behind him toward a dark alley. Once hidden in the shadows of the buildings, he called out to her. “You’re not as slick as you think.”

He was right. Her entire approach was sloppy. She hardly tried to keep her distance. Not wanting to make the same mistake, Mando pulled himself onto the low hanging roof of the building that formed the side of the alleyway. He stayed low. “Jora Olo, right?” She asked calmly. “I just want to talk.”

Jora glanced back at her, “Do I owe you money?”

Mara didn’t look angry, she didn’t look like anything. “No, you—”

He groaned in annoyance. “Then I don’t have time for this.”

Mara crossed the alley in only a few long strides, “You were with Viv.” She sounded desperate now, and Jora turned to look her in the eye. Din’s chest tightened at the name. He’d never heard her say it, but what were the chances? The galaxy was a cruel mix of perfectly timed chaos.

“The night he died,” her voice cracked, “You were with him.”

Dread amplified the harsh tug in Din’s chest. “Yeah…what are you to him?” Jora wasn’t doing himself any favors by responding as if Mara was a burden he had to deal with.

“I just—I need to know what happened.” She pleaded. Din willed her to stop. _Just turn around. Go back and sit in front of the fire and forget about this._

“You a bounty hunter? Those Overlords told me I wouldn’t have to deal with you guys.” Jora grumbled.

Mara took a step forward. “What do you mean?” Her voice shook. “What did the Overlords have to do with this?”

Jora shrugged off the question. “Whatever your guild rate is, I can double it. Can you wait ’til tomorrow?”

The air was eerily still—the Calm. Din hung his head. He kept finding himself in this position; watching helplessly as Mara realizes just how unforgiving the galaxy is. “Are you saying you murderedhim?” she asked so quietly that his audio enhancers almost didn’t pick it up. “It wasn’t an accident? He didn’t caught in the middle of a—”

“I did a job! That was all, love. If someone has a hit out on me, tell them to take it up with that damn Brothel.”

Mara fell back on her heels. “The Overlords hired you to kill him…”

“Something about making things difficult, I don’t know.” Jora mumbled, tilting his head.

“Was it Destrie?” Mara growled.

“There wasn't just one, and I don't know their names. Why do you care?” He shouted, closing the gap between them. He squinted like he was trying to read her but couldn’t quite make her out from far away. He got close enough to study her headband, and ran his greasy hand over her temple where the fabric covered her scar. “Ah, I see.” He chuckled.

The Mandalorian’s forefinger hovered just barely over the rifle’s trigger. It’d be so easy to get rid of the problem all together. The decision was unchallenging, but this was Mara’s fight. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. He was intruding—No, he was making sure she’d walk away tonight. That’s what he’d tell himself. The dead man continued, “Trust me, love. There are ten more whores just like him in your brothel.”

He turned to walk away but Mara caught his arm. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Jora gave a waving gesture of annoyance and raised his blaster to her chest. “You don’t want to become an issue like your friend.”

There was no fire in her eyes. There was no explosion. Just the Storm. In one graceful, swooping motion, Mara swung the staff out in front of her. The blaster fired, but she already ducked down low enough to dodge it. The blade twisted in her grasp, and she sliced it across his wrist. His hand, still gripping his weapon, fell to the ground to a howl of curses.

The Mandalorian figured Mara was done with her mission now, and he made the move to jump down from the roof when the undeniable sound of cracking bone filled his auditory sensors. Jora was on his knees in front of the woman, one of his legs was unnaturally bent outward. He buckled over, groaning in anguish and primal rage. Blood pooled in front of him from his newly severed hand. He hadn’t given up fighting back, but Mara was blindly ruthless; a calculated, unstoppable force. She’d maimed him so quickly and with such wicked determination, that Jora hadn’t even realized he was staring Death in the face. And she was merciless.

There were certain men who spat in the face of Death—who up until the very end, still believed themselves to be above it all. Jora, obviously, was one of these men. He lunged at her, but it was slow and desperate. Mara merely stepped to the side and watched his body slosh into the blood soaked dirt. Tearfully, she walked away from him. And Din released a breath of relief.“I’m sure you feel great, now! You’re just like me! I felt the same way seeing your precious Viv suffer.” Jora groaned, laughing cynically into the mud. Mara paused. _Leave, you stubborn woman._ “You should have heard him beg! You’ll find out one day, I’m sure, the begging is the best part. But you’re just a nameless, 10-credit whore who can swing a blade. I won’t give you the same—”

The words didn’t have a chance to escape Jora’s throat. It was disturbing, truly; how stone cold Mara was when she cocked the staff. The lightning crack of energy zapped across the blade, and she spun around, letting the blade slice through the bone and muscle and skin of his neck. The Mandalorian knew he should have stopped her, and he would have, but the Storm kept him frozen in place.

Amber wasn’t ablaze, Mara was carved from stone. She glared ahead into the darkness as the man’s head thudded to the ground. The body fell forward and Mara stood and stared down at a grisly, mangled corpse.

Din, shaking himself out of the daze of witnessing such a relentless storm, cautiously approached the marble woman. While she was facing him, eyes wide and empty, he was all but invisible until he was close enough to reach out and touch her. Mara looked up as one would when they’ve been awoken from a dream, or sleep walking, or hypnosis. And it seemed the galaxy had finally broken something in her that she’d been haphazardly holding together because Mara buried her face into Din’s shoulder and started to cry. Hard. Waves of sobs crashed through the woman with violent intensity. Her arms tightly locked around Din’s waist like if he hadn’t been there as a pillar for her to cling to, she’d collapse.

Automatically, his hand cupped the back of her head, and he tried to ignore the burning ache in the back of his own. While he never handled them well, tears didn’t really effect Din that much, so it wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable to witness her in such a vulnerable moment; but it was hard to ignore the corpse folded at his feet.

Minutes passed like hours as the sobs muffled into soft, stuttering gasps for air. Once Mara regained as much composure as could be expected, her arms loosened from around his torso and she pulled away. Her gaze locked onto the carnage sprawled across the ground. Din spoke, as softly as he could manage. “We should go.”

Mara nodded, and he realized just how covered she was in blood. Her eyes were swollen, but they had the smallest flicker of life again. Even if that light was born from her sadness, Din could work with it.

For an excruciatingly long while, all that echoed through the plains was the sound of their boots crunching against the dirt and rock, “I’m sorry I snuck—that you had to see—,” Mara trailed off, her voice violently trembling. “I’m making things very difficult, and I know that. I promise I’m not causing problems on purpose.”

Causing problems? Hadn’t Din been the reason she kept finding herself in these positions? First, Gideon destroying the Collective, and now bringing her to the planet that her friend’s killer was hiding out on. If he’d just left her in that Brothel as he should have, would she have been better off?

Din wanted her to keep talking. At least if she continued speaking, she wouldn’t turn to stone again, “Who’s Viv?”

“Scoria,” Mara coughed up the name with disgust, and cleared her throat, pausing until her voice was steady, “may have been the Brothel’s leader, but Viv was the heart. If we’re going to get sentimental.”

Din nodded as a cue for her to continue. _Keep her moving._ If the lava kept flowing, it wouldn’t cool and harden; it’d stay glowing and soft. “The stories that man could spin. He could turn a city of criminals into treasure, you know?” Mara smiled sadly. “He’d know exactly what to do right now. With the Collective. With the Syndicates. Scoria. All of it. He was like if Rebellion sprouted legs. When he was a kid, some Imps got ahold of him, and he escaped by blowing up an entire cargo hold. They made the mistake of sitting him near some gas cartridges while they threatened to burn his village down. He was fast so getting a blaster out of a Storm Trooper’s hands wasn’t hard. You would have liked him, I think.”

“Sounds like it.” Din agreed. _Poor kid._

“But, mostly...he was just kind. When I turned 17, I aged into being able to work.” She started. Din couldn’t stop himself from sneering at the notion that someone so young would be forced to turn intimacy into a profession. Mara waved him off and kept going. “Viv was older than me so he’d already been working for a couple of years. The night before my first client, he snuck into my room like he always did. But this time, the moment, and I mean the moment, he stepped through the window he asked if I’d let him kiss me!” She laughed, although it was sad, it was a real laugh.

“It caught me off guard because Viv and I had never crossed that line. He mostly preferred men, but even so, it wasn’t like that with us. We were too close. I laughed in his face. He was so earnest though. Earnest in a way boys that age usually aren’t. And he said—I’ll never forget it—he said, ‘You should be kissed by someone who doesn't want to take anything from you that you won’t give.’ I didn’t know what that meant.”

Tears slid down her cheeks again. Din watched helplessly. Should he wipe them away? Hold her? The dying fire of their camp appeared dimly ahead, and Mara kept her eyes on the light as she spoke. “And it was...fine. In the way that I assume first kisses are. It was so anticlimactic that I thought he had been dramatic. I didn’t know it was the kindest thing he could have ever done: just a normal, boring kiss. No ultimatums or expectations. We didn’t take anything from each other. We were in it together. No matter what,” she wiped away tears, and her voice darkened suddenly, “And he died alone because a group of men decided he deserved to.”

Air escaped her chest in a painful sounding staccato. “I just _miss_ him. But he doesn’t even exist anymore, so I’m stuck feeling all of this...with no where to put it. For the first time, I'm alone. And I'm doing ridiculous things and dragging you with me. I have to stop.” Her smirk didn't reach her eyes _._

If there was ever a time when Din wanted to have the right words to say, it was now. He’d spent years tugging Grief back into the corner of his mind, training to be the deadliest warrior that he could mold himself into, and putting every thought into getting the next job done as an attempt to quiet the loss that echoed in the hollowed out chambers of the past. The problem was, though, that there were no right words to say.

Silence fell over them as they arrived to the camp, Cara was still knocked out. Her hand was resting on the child’s pram. The air wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, but there was a sizzling unease just below the surface. Mara had been giving more of herself than Din had expected to receive. The quiet occasionally prompted people to talk out of nervousness, but Mara didn’t give this information as an attempt to fill empty air. She gave it to him because she wanted him to have it. “No matter how I justify it, it wasn’t a honorable kill in your eyes, was it?” Mara whispered, sitting down on the log in front of the dimming embers pulsing with a warm glow.

Frankly, Din didn’t believe he could form any kind of judgement on the matter. After all he’d done…“That was vengeance.” He decided simply, “Was it honorable? Maybe not, but I can’t say I blame you.”

“Am I a monster if I said I’m still glad I killed him?” Even in a whisper, Mara’s voice was thick from tears and heartbreak.

Din knelt in front of her and, without thinking much about it, gently lifted Mara’s chin toward him. He just wanted to look her in the eyes when he said, “You are not a monster.”

“I’m afraid that I am.” She murmured.

Mara grasped Din’s wrist, and moved his hand from under her chin to cradle the side of her face. Slowly, she leaned forward, pressing her forehead lightly against the visor of the helmet, and lacing her fingers over his. Like the day before, he waited for the cells to stir with malevolent mockery. Like the day before in the doorway of his cockpit, there was only silence. If Mara _was_ torment, Din would walk straight into Hell for more.


	17. Protect Your Own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence

Bathed in sleep’s ignorance, Mara woke under a watchful sun. Her body punished her for a night spent lying on the ground under a scratchy blanket, and her mind kindly neglected the corpse she had left lying in the alley way of a village carved out of bedrock. The killing was still stuck in the realm of a nightmare. Specifics were out of focus; protectively blurred out by adrenaline and shock. Not that Mara fought for clarity. Green eyes widening as they looked into death, and a mocking taunt toward Viv that made her vision go black were better off forgotten; better off scattered behind her and left for the Empty to absorb so that she could power ahead.

A groan escaped Mara’s mouth as she stretched her tightened spine, and rolled over. Mando was propped up against the log. His helmet was tilted downward, and his chest rose and fell with each breath. The kid must have crawled out of his pram after they had fallen asleep because he was wrapped in Mando’s cape and curled up against his hip. There was a single, cruel moment where Mara contemplated doing the same. The barely burning embers and nestling her cheek into his hand had obviously still fogged up her common sense.

Mara shook the thoughts away and pulled herself out from underneath the blanket to assess the damage in full view of the sky. The morning light did her no favors—she looked like a lunatic. Dark red stained the gray cloth on her torso, and even a bloody handprint was draped across her thigh. She could still feel the desperate pressure of a dying man trying to hold onto life. “Shit,” Cara sat up, disregarding the hour and speaking at full volume, “Are you okay?”

“It’s not my blood.” Mara said numbly.

Mando sat up straight from the disturbance. The child blinked groggily and rubbed his eyes. “And here I was thinking you snuck off to find a cantina.” Cara sounded more surprised than she did judgmental.

“She might have. She leaves cantinas looking the same way.” Mando joked, nodding in Mara’s direction as he stood up and flung his rifle around his back.

“I think I’m starting to like you,” Cara mumbled, quirking a smirk.

Regardless of—or maybe because of—their mockery, Mara withheld the beginnings of a smile as she turned on the ball of her foot and bounded up the ramp of the Razor Crest.

The fabric of her tunic didn’t do much to repel blood. Mara peeled her clothes off and quickly cleaned the dried, sticky red residue from her skin. _“You’re just like me!”_ A graveling voice exploded in her ears so loudly that Mara spun around expecting to see a pale corpse staring at her with cloudy white eyes.

There was no living dead figure hovering behind her, of course. The weapons were the only company Mara had. She pressed her forehead and trembling hands against the wall of the ship, half bracing herself against it and half focusing on the cool metal to keep her mind from slipping out of her grasp.

A voice faintly cut through her fog. For a moment, Mara was so stuck in her head, feeling the coolness against her skin, that she thought it was nothing more than her imagination again. But she heard the call again, and this time it came with a command, “Hurry up, Rebel!” Cara was shouting, and Mara jolted back into reality.

Remnants of charred wood and dirt scented the air, and they retraced their steps back into the village. The rocks crunching beneath Mara’s boots cracked like a broken knee cap. Blades of grass bowed to the commands of the wind, wheezing like a final breath escaping man’s throat. The town appeared ahead like a reoccurring nightmare.

Muted shadows were cast across the small buildings carved out of large slabs of rock. The alley screamed for Mara’s attention. In her peripheral, she could have sworn a slumped over, decapitated figure slowly waved to her from its entrance. It was out of focus and blurry, but she was sure it was there, lazily swinging a dead hand side to side, taunting her. She kept her eyes forward.

_Keep it together._

_Keep it together._

Cara lead them into a seedy side street. The stone-carved huts were covered in mosses and vines that snaked up into the chipped surfaces. Cara leaned against the wall, checking her bounty puck. The device rang out incessantly. “Alright, it looks like he’s still upstairs,” she whispered, “There should be six Gamorreans, four guarding downstairs, and two staying by his side. We’ll split up. Mando, you and the Rebel take downstairs, it’ll give me the chance to grab the quarry.”

The Mandalorian nodded once, and clicked the control to shut the child’s orb. The bounty hunters drew their blasters, and Mara unsheathed her staff. Cara quietly side stepped, ducking under dust-ridden windows, and halting at a wooden entrance. She allowed for Mara and the Mandalorian to catch up. Once they reached her side, she reared back and slammed the heel of her foot into the door. It swung open.

There was a brief moment where the four Gamorreans in the barely-furnished room, were too stunned by the trio bursting into the space. So they stood, dumb, before they lifted their swords and began to swing. Mara blocked a blade from making contact with the side of Cara’s head.

“Go!” Mara yelled, and watched the bounty hunter disappear up wooden stairs framed by exposed rusted pipes that blew off steam in systematic spurts.

The Gamorrean who swung at Cara grabbed Mara by the roots of her hair and slammed her against a scalding pipe. She screamed from the burn slapping her like a white hot handprint spreading across her back. With all of the strength she could muster, Mara buried her staff in the Gamorrean’s shoulder, sliding easily through the tendons and muscle. He squealed and lurched back, giving Mara enough space to slide away from the burning metal that zig-zagged through the entire room. She backed into something large and hard, and a new hand came down around her arm. The steam pumping out of the pipes made the air stick to her skin, so Mara slid out of his grip and sliced her staff across a second Gamorrean’s chest.

She was sure she could get a second blow in to finish the job, but before she could slam the blade into him again, something wrapped tight around her waist and jerked her backward. Twisting around, she slammed hard into metal. She pushed off of it, but a gloved hand came down against her back and held her there. High pitched whistles echoed across the room. The sound waves bounced shrilly off of the pipes.

Mara looked back toward their attackers. Several small projectiles whizzed through the air and tunneled into the Gamorreans’ skulls. Mando looked down at her and Mara paused, staring into the visor. If the light hit it just right when she was only inches away, pressed against him like this, could she see through the tinted screen? His hands loosened around her waist, and her stomach involuntarily flipped. He promptly untangled the chord from the grappling hook, unwinding it around her torso, and curled it into a neat loop before it had a chance to fall to the ground.

A cry out from above forced the room to reappear. Mara pushed away from Mando, and they raced up the stairs. The suite was structured similarly to the room below; rusted piping lined the walls. Differing from their counterparts, though, these kept their integrity, and didn’t haphazardly spit out steam. Two Gamorreans were sprawled out on the floor by a large bed. Cara was caught in a battle with two women donning silver temples.

The quarry, all bravado with nothing to show for it, was attempting to lower himself over the ledge of the window. But an unleashed grappling hook lassoed through the air and wrapped around him. Mando yanked him back into the room. He cursed and writhed in a weak attempt escape the confines of the rope. His long, grey hair fell greasy over his eyes. A scrappy poorly-kept beard shaped his angry features. Mara watched, horrified, when one of the Workers leapt from Cara and buried a knife into the back of Mando’s shoulder. She drug it down hard, and he hissed from its tear. Mara’s heart all but dropped onto the floor when he swiftly turned around and wrapped a steel-grip around the Worker’s throat.

Mara witnessed the battle helplessly. The women looked familiar; she had never seen them before, but the silver on their temples transformed them into Viv, into Quinn, into every being who walked through the refuge on Dantooine, into Mara’s own reflection. She traced across all of the burning metal that encased the room, and cocked her staff to life. The energy field erupted along its blade. Mando disarmed his attacker, slipping the knife out of her hands. Before the weapon had the opportunity to meet the Worker’s throat, Mara jumped in between them and used the shaft of her staff to twist Mando’s arm, forcing him to lose his grip around the woman’s neck. She shoved him with as much strength as she could manage.

He fell onto the ground, but shot back up to his feet quicker than she expected. But not before Mara slammed the electrified blade against the pipes three times. She put more force into each hit she inflicted. Bolts of energy reverberated through the cylinders; creating a harsh ringing that sung so loud and so piercing that it vibrated in Mara’s bones.

“ _Enough!_ ” Mara yelled, watching everyone in the room stumble back from the sound and cover their ears. The Mandalorian groaned, shaking his head from the sound impacting the technology inside his helmet. “Cara, you have your bounty. And you two,” Mara said, addressing the Workers, “Have no reason to defend yourselves from us.”

The women glared at Mara with identical dark, angry eyes. “He owes us 2,000 credits. If you take him, we don’t get paid,” the taller woman with vibrant, cropped red hair spoke, pushing off of Cara and taking a step toward the bounty.

Cara yanked him to his feet and dug through his pockets. “Watch yourself, lady!” He hissed, and she pulled out a red leather wallet and tossed it in the red head’s direction. She gracefully caught it.

The other worker, clad in shining golden fabric and hair that matched, studied Mara for a moment too long. “You were one of us.” She whispered.

Automatically, Mara reached up to her scar. Her headband was dangling around her neck—torn off from the battle that had erupted below their feet. The room was focused on her now, and Mara felt like she had been stripped bare. “You both can fight,” she remarked, slowly returning her staff to its place on her back.

“Thanks to our Madam,” the Worker replied, holding her hand out to the Mandalorian and cueing him to return her dagger; he listened and she tucked it into her pocket. “We were trained by the Collective until the Overlords returned.”

Mara blinked at her. “You know about the Collective?”

The quarry tried to wiggle out of the chords. He almost succeeded, but the redhead grabbed him by the collar. Her foot wrapped around his ankle, and pulled his balance out from under him. Cara exchanged a brief glance with Mando as she snapped binders around the quarry’s wrists. “There’s not much to know anymore. Our Madam warned that the syndicates would come, and when she didn’t agree to their bribe…you know how it goes.” The blonde Worker stepped around Cara and placed herself directly in front of Mara. “But you escaped…” 

Mara nodded. “You can too.”

The Workers tensed as soon as Mara spoke the words, and she understood the feeling; hearing something so hopeful, but being incapable of finding the joy that should come along with it. Instead, it’d leave one alone with the dread and inevitability of seeing that hope dragged away in chains. Or sprawled across the floor of a fortress. Or watching a partner grab it by the throat. The bounty hunters said something about needing to go, but Mara was too focused on her Workers do do anything besides motion for them to follow.

The sun was blinding as they walked out onto the street. Mara squinted, just now realizing the pram had been floating beside her. She watched the enclosed orb hum along, keeping her eyes fixed on it while the alleyway on the other side of the village sang out malicious taunts louder, and louder. An unsteady commotion buzzed around its entrance. Several humans were gathered in a semi-circle, a larger humanoid species was dragging carnage out into the streets and throwing it carelessly on a large speeder bike to haul it away.

This time, Mara couldn’t tear her eyes away. Her gate slowed, and she nearly came to a full stop before Cara’s voice interrupted her. She was standing close, a tight grip on the binders of the bounty, watching the corpse get strapped onto the vehicle. “Did he deserve it?” She asked.

“He did.” Mara whispered.

In dead silence, they watched the humanoid mount the speeder bike and ride off into the distance. Cara pushed the bounty to move forward. “Good,” she muttered.

The quarry shot quick glances in between the women before he put the pieces together and in a panic, cried out, “Hold on, _you_ did _that_?”

Cara chuckled and gave him a light shove. “You may want to consider behaving.”

They returned to the campsite, and Cara had left the bounty sitting on the log under Mando’s sharp eye as she fetched her ship. The Mandalorian brought Mara the supplies she needed to disarm and remove the opt-blockers. It’d been a while since Kai had taught her on Dantooine, but the moment the scalpel was in her hands, Mara’s muscle memory was able to take over.

The two women spoke of a refuge on Coruscant, one that had been continuing the training that the Collective had started. Mara smiled as she pressed a rag hard against the temple of Aayla Laki, the sparkling blonde. “What kind of whores _are you?_ ” The quarry suddenly spat, shuffling in his seat.

The Mandalorian, focused on handing the child a set of rations, looked toward Mara as she swiped a bit of the bacta she had saved across Aayla’s temple. Mara shook her head and motioned for the redhead, Nabrina Veela, to take Aayla’s place. “You’re not going to do anything about that?” Mando asked, taking a step closer to her.

Mara frowned a little, snipping the wires in the device, and letting Nabrina have a moment to rest after the pressure released behind her eyes. “Someone told me that I need to pick my battles,” she quipped.

The quarry snickered at that, his scruffy beard twisting around his features, and making his devious, toothy smile stand out, “’S cute, ya know. A Mandalorian, his prostitute, and their pet.”

She was going to ignore the mockery. Mara was too exhausted from the night, too focused on twisting the device out of Nabrina’s skull and trying to keep her steady through the pain to deal with the words from a seedy warlord who was so easily detained. There was a muffled sound of the man attempting to yell, though, that forced her to pay attention.

Mando tied a gag around the bounty’s mouth. Once it was secured, he swiftly shoved him off of the log and watched him struggle in the dirt. “They're called Workers,” Mando grumbled, and returned to be next to his kid.

Cara returned with her ship and encased the gagged warlord in carbonite. The bounty hunter even offered the runaways passage to Coruscant, and Mara found herself wanting to pull the woman into a tight embrace. Mara settled for thanking her as earnestly as she could. “You protect your own, Rebel. For that, I’ll stand with you,” Cara smiled, and offered a farewell nod in the direction of the Mandalorian.

Mara was practically beaming, watching Cara’s ship roar alive. It expelled a heavy wind that kicked up dust and smoke, and climbed off into the atmosphere. The Mandalorian spoke once it was practically out of sight, “Alright. We’re off to Savareen…What’s that look for?”

Blood rushed to Mara’s face, and she shrugged. Her smile still hadn’t faded, “She calls me Rebel,” she murmured excitedly, leaning her body into the nickname.

Mando sighed, tilting his helmet at her— _rolling his eyes._ “Get in the Crest, Mara.”

Eyes locked on the sky, Mara put her hands on her hips. She wasn’t quite ready to let go of the spark that was beginning to ignite in her chest. “Sorry, _who_?”

“No.”

Turning on the ball of her foot, Mara opened her mouth to complain about how dull Mandalorians can be, but he was already halfway up the hull of the Razor Crest. The child was cooing at her from his pram and hovering just behind Mando. They both disappeared into the vessel.

She didn’t immediately follow them. Mara stood, watching the clouds roll across the sky, listening to the wind comb through her hair with cool airy fingers, and letting the vast rolling landscape remind her of how astonishingly insignificant she really was in comparison to it all. And she was alright with that. She welcomed that graciously. _“You are so very small,”_ whispered the breeze.

Upon entering the ship, Mara began to wipe dried blood off of her staff. The engine shifted the floor underneath her, but she had become used to alternating her footing so that she wouldn’t be knocked onto her knees. The rumble grew until it quieted into the familiar hum of hyperspace, and Mara was able to lean back against the wall.

The heavy thud of boots slamming against the floor announced Mando’s entrance, but Mara continued working. She twisted the staff in her hands and swiped the rag across the blade, trying not to focus on the visor, unmoving, turned in her direction. The unwavering gaze made a task as simple as cleaning a weapon feel impossible. Her movements were clumsily executed and out of place.

Mara glanced up at him. The child was in his makeshift hammock beside him, swinging himself in the hanging bed the slightest bit. And there was the Mandalorian—leaned against the side of his sleeping quarters with his arms crossed. A dark smudge wouldn’t rub off with the dry rag. So Mara, without thinking at all, licked the spot so she wouldn’t have to dig through the Crest’s numerous storage containers for cleaning supplies. The realization of what she had done only settled upon her when the foul metallic taste of blood coated her mouth. She violently grimaced and fought the urge to gag. Mando slowly uncrossed his arms. “Did you just—” He trailed off.

“No, shut up. _Did I just—”_ Mara dropped the staff and covered her mouth in disgust.

She stumbled over to the privy and spit into it. She hoped, uselessly, that the repugnant aftertaste would dissipate. A canteen of water was shoved in front of her and she scrambled to unscrew it and desperately gulp down water to swish around her mouth. The remnants of blood were finally gone, and, sheepishly, she turned to see the visor tilted, and the kid’s eyes locked onto her.

Mando snorted. “How does Gamorrean taste?”

“Surprisingly good, you want to try?” Mara croaked, gesturing toward the weapon she threw on the ground to hide the embarrassment that was beginning to wash across her face.

He shook his head and an airy chuckle flowed out of his modulator. Even caught in the clutches of humiliation and revulsion, Mara grinned up at him. She liked how beskar looked when it was holding in understated laughter. “I think I’ll pass.” He replied. When Mando turned away from her and started rummaging through one of his storage containers, she was almost missed the sight. He pulled out his cauterizer and clean gauze. “But I do need a hand,” he said, kicking the storage container out from the wall and reaching behind his back to tear open the fabric that Nabrina had ripped with her dagger.

He sat down and held up the medical supplies for Mara to take. The gash was gnarly. The knife tore deep into his muscle and covered his entire shoulder blade red. “Damn, Mando. You should have said something…” Mara whispered, pouring a bit of water into a rag and wiping away his blood.

“I’m saying something now.”

She scoffed, but continued cleaning the wound. Mando had only torn a ragged hole into his flight suit that was a little bigger than a fist, but raised scars traced down across most of his exposed skin and disappeared behind the fabric. He lifted the cauterizer and clicked it on. Mara pushed him away. “We’ve got enough bacta left for this.” She mused.

“You don’t want to save that?” He asked.

“Promise not to tell anyone I ingested Gamorrean blood and I’ll spare you a scar.” She teased.

“I thought you were going to cause another today.” He responded, matter of factly.

Mara lathered the bacta ointment over the gash and furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Those women attacked us, and you went after _me_.”

A vision of the Mandalorian holding a Worker by the throat and pressing a knife through the soft skin under her jaw came rushing to the forefront of her mind. “I didn’t want to see another Worker die.” Mara confessed, her heart rate quickened at the sudden rush of honesty that she hadn’t expected to allow.

She set the empty vial to the side and returned Mando’s cape to its place down his back. He deliberately turned to face her. “I wasn’t going to kill her.”

Mara patted him on the pauldron, “You pulled a knife on her.”

“I don’t know if you can tell, but she stabbed me. So I disarmed her.” He corrected evenly.

Mara pondered this. Thinking through the entire encounter, attempting to weed out the moment where he poised the knife at a Worker’s neck. Coming up short, she tried to find any indication that Nabrina would have ended up dead, and realized with a rush of blood to her cheeks that even when Scoria had fired off a shot, he aimed for her shoulder. The unbearable twinge of foolishness twisted in her stomach. Mara tried to quiet her head, tried to reassure herself that the Mandalorian could be a killer, but he had proved himself to be more calculated than she had believed him to be. She could only get halfway there, like draping a thin silk tarp over the ugly parts of her mind.

“Maybe you’re right,” she confessed quietly, unable to justify the odd way her vulnerability from the night before had contorted itself into a potent form of paranoia. How could she so quickly go from leaning her face into his palm to expecting it to drive a knife into her kind?

Mando stood and shoved the med kit into its appropriate container. He nodded before saying, “We’ll work on it. I need a partner who trusts me.”

 _Trust?_ How trivial it was to sum up the knot that was constantly tangling and untangling in her stomach as something as simple as lack of trust. It may have been arrogance, but she refused to take all of the blame. The Mandalorian was turning away from her now, though, and she couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him exit the conversation with the notion still flitting recklessly around the empty hull. Frantically, she reached forward, wrapping a tight grip around his forearm. She twisted him back around. “Woah, no way! Hold on, Din!” Mara cried out.

Din froze, surely because of the unexpected usage of a name he hadn’t grown used to hearing from others. Mara pulled him close; half because she wanted to, half to prove her point. She grabbed the ridge of his helmet, taking away any ability he had to look away. He jerked a little bit and grabbed her by the wrist, but she didn’t budge. “Don’t put all of this on me. I’m not the only one in this ship who isn’t all too keen to face the risks that come with trust. On Dantooine, you said you’d hunt me down if I separated you from your kid and then _I_ was the reason we were pawned off as bait. You didn’t let me go to the Refuge alone. Cas changed an entire battle plan because of you. Hell, you even followed me into the village last night!”

“You could have been killed on Bespin _and_ Dantooine if I—”

Mara jostled his helmet to cut in, “I know! I know! Listen to me. I’m glad you were there, but don’t claim it had anything to do with protection. You have _always_ been making sure I’m staying in line.”

Suffocating silence thickened the air. No traces of anger or accusations were hidden in the crevices of the conversation. Instead it resembled a negotiation and cradled the same intensity as the moments that lead up to a truce. Din tightened his grip around Mara’s wrist. Surely, even when they were so close, his auditory sensors wouldn’t be able to pick up how hard her heart was beating in her chest, right? The slightest sound of him inhaling made her think he was about to speak. Mara beat him to it, “Trust hasn’t come easy for _either_ of us, Din.”

Mara let go of his helmet, but the gloved hand didn’t do the same. He kept her there, staring her down, and she felt like she was back in the steaming room of the dilapidated hut in the side street of the bedrock village with a grappling hook chord twisted around her. “Okay. Sure, yeah. Yeah, it—it hasn’t. You’re…you’re right.” Din stammered.

Did he actually just stammer?


	18. Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Trafficking, involuntary drug-use, violence, abuse

Hyperspace swallowed the Razor Crest whole. The flight to the discharged New Republic operative Frederick Hex’s _Holding House_ began to feel like a pathway straight into a trap. It was the first lead Din had gotten that could give him an idea as to where Jedi were, though, so he had to risk it. Did Quinn even receive the transmission he sent on Bespin? Where did that holoprojector go, anyway? _It doesn’t matter. Focus._

Abandoning the co-pilot’s chair to climb into Din’s lap, the child untwisted his metal ball from the joystick. A glowing red button caught the imagination that laid inside large brown eyes, and his green hand dropped his favorite toy and reached out, lightning quick, to press it. Din intercepted the action, “You’ll throw us off course if you press that,” he scolded lightly.

The child huffed out a tiny breath of air in protest. Din smiled to himself, picking up and handing the silver ball to six little fingers, “Sorry, pal. This’ll have to do.”

It was enough, the kid rotated it around in his hands and let it float just outside of his grasp. The metal orb spun on its own volition, suspending in thin air and bouncing around as if it was being expertly juggled. Din stared in awe, as he always did when he got to witness the powers that his foundling possessed.

The magic was a welcomed distraction. Din had been trying not to turn over the conversation from the previous morning for hours. “ _Don’t say it had anything to do with protection.”_ Mara had been so confident in the statement, and there was an instant where Din automatically opened his mouth to disagree with her. But she was right. Every action was done to make sure his foundling was safe, it was all to make sure she was staying in line. She was right. She was right. She was right. Din’s suspicions of her caused a tug in his chest that pushed him to go to the Dantooine Refuge, and agree to act as bait, and follow her into a dark tundra, and let her lay her head against his shoulder to sleep, and lean into him and take off his chest plate so she could run her hands down his chest, and say his name…he wondered what it’d sound like coming out of her mouth if he was— _Why is the cockpit so hot?_

Sweat beaded on the back of Din’s neck, and a heavy tingling, thickly rooted in his ribs, grew outward and weighed down his arms. He checked the temperature gauges. _Normal, obviously._ Though he expected it, he still looked to find the child didn’t look uncomfortable in the slightest either, his toy had returned to its place in his hands. Din rolled his shoulders back, shaking his head to clear the haze that had started lingering in crowded cells. The boredom of hyperspace had no doubt begun to tap at the walls of his skull, letting his mind wander into territories he knew he shouldn’t be venturing into. _“I’m doing ridiculous things, and dragging you with me. I have to stop.”_ Mara had made that clear.

The navigation panel blinked its warning that the ship should return to cruising speed in order to make it to their destination. Amber eyes excitedly absorbing the view of new planets flashed in front of him. Din swiveled around to call down into the belly of the ship, “Hey, get up here. We’re jumping out of hyperspace.”

Mara quickly climbed into the cockpit, settled into her usual spot, and strapped herself in. The ship jolted forward as the streams of light separated and broke apart into individual stars glittering the immense darkness. The approaching globe was all swaths of tan except a giant, bright blue ocean that cut through the land. Clouds drifted lazily across its atmosphere, and Din watched Mara revel at the sight through the reflection of the glass. “So this is Savareen,” She stated, “Hard to believe some place so pretty is home to a Holding House.”

“Is there anything I should expect going in?”

“I don’t know, really,” Mara admitted without looking away from the planet growing larger as they drew closer, “I know that women aren’t permitted in unless they’re Workers. I also know from the outside looking in, they seem like run down cantinas when they’re more like meat markets to sell those of us who tried to escape, or beings who have come into the industry through the slave smugglers as captives from colonizing planets or hostages from battle. It’s the worst of the worst. That’s all I’ve got. The kid should stay here.”

Din shifted the ship so that it was able to cruise through the atmosphere, and the engines responded by rumbling a little louder. “Maybe you should too,” he proposed cautiously, hoping she’d take him up on the offer. If he wanted to get in and get out with the information he needed, he couldn’t risk her righteous eruptions pulling him into a battle—no matter how justified they may be. A horrible part of him wondered how skilled these guards would be. If this was a place where they punished Workers who escaped, Mara could be walking right into her own prison.

“Absolutely not.”

“The kid could use someone to keep him safe now that we know Gideon is still alive,” he tried again.

“Is this a guilt trip?”

“It was worth a shot,” Din responded plainly.

“Valiant attempt, Mandalorian,” Mara retorted. 

The Crest swerved off on the outskirts of a run down coastal town that was scattered among large rock formations. Small huts and buildings were raised high on stakes that stuck into the sand and built into the stone shaped from centuries of waves crashing into their form, water carving its own space. The buildings were connected by bridges and passage ways that weaved over and under each other. The Crest was low enough now, and brightly dressed people sauntered through the pathways, scattering around each other. By night fall, the moon would pull the ocean forward to swallow up the rocks and flood the sands that the huts were grounded in.

A landing pad, housing three small ships, appeared at the center of the town. While Din sorted out landing permissions with a metallic sounding voice that droned out of his comlink, Mara disappeared back down the ladder. The ship came to it’s resting place, and Din scooped up the child and dropped himself into the hull to square him away. As soon as his boot met the ground and he turned, sheer flowing fabric and skin was all he could see.

Mara was tugging uncomfortably on the black strips of cloth that wound up her torso, her face scrunched into a scowl as she tied it off behind her neck. A metallic plate was placed perfectly over her scar. Silver spilled down long legs, and Din’s eyes kept getting stuck on the curve of her waist and how the shining fabric draped lightly over her form. Something in his head had jammed like when the mechanics in a blaster dislodge and lock into the wrong place. Is this really how she looked when she dropped onto his speeder bike in Keyorin? He didn’t remember her looking like this.

“Why are you wearing that?” Din’s voice came out harsher than he intended, as he tore his eyes away and sealed the child into his sleeping quarters.

Briefly, Mara glanced up from adjusting the waistline of her pants, and tapped on the Opt-blocker that she somehow reapplied onto her temple. “Women aren’t allowed in, only Workers,” She pulled her blaster off of the wall of Din’s armory, twisting it in her hand to check to see if it was loaded with a new gas cartridge. Satisfied with the ammo, Mara jerked it up to cock it. If he had been a weaker man with different priorities, he was sure the sight would have made his knees give out. The weapon was shoved into Din’s hands, “The downside is, I need you to carry my blaster.”

Tucking it into his belt, the Mandalorian followed her out of the ship, and the hatch hissed shut to a chorus of grinding metal. The sun was high, shining brightly across a sea that roared in the distance. Wood groaned and creaked from the wind that blew through valleys made by rocks the size of ships. Several humans were making their way down the bridge that stretched out toward the heart of the town. Shops and homes were mixed together, difficult to differentiate, but the Mandalorian just needed to find the hut with a red door; apparently, the not-so-understated sign of a Holding House.

They passed through crowds of people, Mara not noticing—or probably used to—the villagers taking second glances their way. The Mandalorian finally caught a flash of red, and he sighed out a breath of relief. While he hadn’t known the horrors that lay beyond the crimson door, it offered reprieve from the blinding sun and the prying eyes of the crowd that bustled hastily around them. One human guard stood by the entrance, he was dressed in burgundy garb, head to toe. No hair, lean, but short, he looked toward the village with his back pressed against the wall, like his job of standing around all day was beginning to weigh on his shoulders. A control panel blinked behind his head. “Doesn’t look like a cantina,” Mando whispered.

“I don’t know _everything_ ,” Mara said through gritted teeth. Her breathing hitched ever so slightly as they both stopped at the entrance.

“Can I help you?” The Guard asked, like they had intruded on his busy schedule.

“We’re here to see Frederick Hex,” the Mandalorian stated.

“Hex?” The Guard asked, his eyebrows furrowed and he turned to the control panel, “What for?”

“Business.”

Immediately, the Mandalorian regretted saying the word. The guard swung back around, drinking in Mara, slowly working his way up and down before looking at Mando. “Just so you don’t waste your time, there are no refunds or returns. It doesn’t matter, though, because she definitely wasn’t one of ours, you sure you got her here?”

There was a brief pause where the Mandalorian tried to think of a lie, something to say to get them inside without raising suspicions. “He’s looking to buy another,” Mara quickly stepped in.

The guard didn’t acknowledge the fact the sentence came from Mara, “Well, if that’s the case, she waits outside.”

Patience was beginning to wear thin, and the Mandalorian waved in her direction, “But she’s a—”

“I don’t make the rules, buddy. Take ‘em up with Hex when you see him. He’s been cracking down lately, so, unless you want to turn around and leave empty handed, she’s staying right here.”

Mara and the Mandalorian exchanged looks. She was on fire. Her hands were balled up in fists, and amber was burning so bright from frustration that he questioned the safety of the Guard who was now tapping on his control panel, letting it scan his palm. It’d be a lie to say that there wasn’t relief in not bringing her inside. The large red door slid into itself, screeching open, and the Mandalorian stepped slowly into overwhelming, smokey darkness.

The light from the sunny village sealed away as the door screamed shut. Smoke caught in his lungs while the Mandalorian tried to make sense of the space around him. It was set up as if it were a high-end cantina, a fully stocked, ornately carved bar with a droid manning it took up an entire back wall. Guards lined the room, armed with large axes and small blasters that they kept holstered in their identical belts. _Twelve. Twelve guards_. Windowless walls kept the room dark; illuminated only by dim, luxurious light that shined off of the crystals dangling in expertly crafted chandeliers.

Horrors were nestled under the guise of grandeur. Mostly Twi’lek’s but some human women and a couple of Togrutas were chained by their necks across the walls. He had seen the practice a handful of times in the crime syndicates that were run by Hutts, but seeing so many, easily over two dozen slaves, staring at nothing in particular made his stomach twist into a knot. A light crowd of hooded or concealed men wandered around the space, smoking out of pipes and sipping on brandy. A few of the bolder patrons would twist the chained women around, closely examining the products they wanted to buy. _A meat market._

A hand came down on his pauldron and the Mandalorian swung around. The assailant raised his arms in surrender, “Ah! I should’ve known not to sneak up on you!” His dark hair was disheveled and striped gray, wrinkles shaped his dark eyes, and he was clothed in run down leather and undeserved hubris.

“Are you Frederick Hex?”

He clapped his hands together and started to guide the Mandalorian through the room. “At your service! I don’t usually take customers with how these damn villagers have been trying to bring down my business, but I don’t think I’ve met a Mandalorian. When I heard one was requesting to do business with _me_? Now that felt like an honor! Let me show you around!”

“I’m not here for—”

Hex pulled one of the thick chains, and a young Togruta stumbled forward. She was easily two heads shorter than both of the men, not including her montrals that towered high above her and fell into lekkuu that draped down her back. A trait of the species was usually their vibrant orange skin, but all of her colors were muted and dulled and washed away from from the glow of crystals that hung above. An orange vial was attached to the inside of her arm, every other chained woman sported their own identical cylinder. Hex slapped him on the back. The Mandalorian imagined how easy it’d be to snap the man’s neck. “Here’s a rare one that you may be interested in! She just got here a few days ago! Our smugglers brought her in after colonizing—”

Whatever was left of the Mandalorian’s patience had evaporated away. He grimaced at the sight and realization that he was somehow taking part in the horror of this place, “I’m here for information that you may have on finding a Jedi.”

The chain fell to the ground with a clatter and Hex’s entire air changed. He jabbed a finger toward the wall, and the Togruta, eyes wide and dead, shuffled back to her place. “Let’s sit,” Hex grumbled, plopping himself into a chair and crossing his arms.

The Mandalorian followed his lead, making note of how a couple of men behind Hex’s head were drunkenly laughing as they pushed a light purple Twi’lek to the side and commented on her uneven lekku; one of them was scarred and grotesquely cut off about halfway up its length. It didn’t even seem like she heard their mockery. “The Jedi come at a high price,” Hex said with a gross smile.

“I intend to pay.”

This made Hex perk up, and he sat forward in his seat. “I worked along side this kid they made Commander when I was in the Rebellion,” he whispered, “It was for a short while on Hoth, before they discharged me,” he choked out his dismissal like he was coughing up something that tasted bitter.

“He had friends on the base, ya know? They kept their eyes on him like he was something special. Which I guess it turned out he was, but he wasn’t the only one who was fighting against the Empire! He wasn’t the only good fighter. Hell, he almost _froze_ to death, and everyone was all up in arms, like that wasn’t something that happened daily on a planet made out of _ice_.”

This was a waste of time. The Mandalorian didn’t care to sit through listening to a disgraced slave trafficker talk through his battle scars and jealousies. Hex picked up on his company’s distaste for the conversation, and extended out his arms, “Settle down, Mando. I’m getting there. You guys really aren’t interested in _manners,_ huh?” He shifted in his seat, raising an aggravated eyebrow at the Mandalorian before he continued, “He disappeared after a pretty gnarly battle, but here was a lot of communication from that base. His friends documented _everything_. I know for a fact that they thought he left the Rebellion to be trained. And then suddenly the kid comes back and he’s claiming to be a Jedi. Laser swords, moving objects with his mind; the whole shebang.”

The Mandolorian leaned forward. _This is more like it._ Hex nodded, pleased to finally be captivating his attention. “Now it was years ago, and I don’t know where he ended up, but if you want to know where the Jedi went—you’ll find it on those holoprojectors on Echo Base. If it even still exists. That battle was _rough_.”

“How do you know they’d keep his location on record? If it was a secret-”

Hex rolled his eyes, “Because one of my roles was working in data and records. I knew those holoprojectors like my own ship. The princess, our leader, kept everything in those things. I had my quarrels with the woman but I give her credit. She was good for two things; lookin’ at and leadin’.”

“There’s gotta be more to it than that,” The Mandalorian argued, “If that kind of information was on that base, the Empire would have gotten ahold of it.”

This made Hex laugh; actually laugh, as if the entire notion was impossible for someone as clever as he was. His hands reached around his neck and he pulled off a silver chain with a small black data stick hanging off of it. “Not without one of these. Never had the heart to get rid of it. Even after what they did to me, I _still_ kept their secrets. Some of us remain honorable even when we’re wronged, you know?” he grumbled, almost pitifully, as if he actually believed it. He dropped the necklace into his other hand and balled it up into a fist, “Or maybe I was just waiting for the right buyer.”

The Mandalorian rolled his eyes, reaching into his pocket and pulling out an amount of credits that he’d hoped would be substantial enough to draw this conversation, and this visit, to its close; not that the information was substantial enough to match the price. Hex greedily reached for the pile of credits, sliding the data stick across the table for the Mandalorian to catch. It wasn’t much. In fact, it was hardly anything. There wasn’t a lot to be salvaged in finding the Jedi’s whereabouts from years ago. However, if this one had left to be trained…maybe it was exactly the information he needed to bring the child where he belonged. The Mandalorian’s stomach dropped, “You have his name?”

Hex thought for a moment, looking as if he made a real effort to dig through his mind to pull it out, “It’s been so long…I can’t say I remember…I _do remember_ his callsigns though—how we coded each other. Echo Three and…Rogue Lead-Leader, I think. Not that those are much use to you.”

The Mandalorian lifted to his feet, and Hex did the same to show him out. They walked passed the chained women, and the Mandalorian found himself stopping in front of the young Togruta again, almost involuntarily. His eyes locked onto the orange vial on her arm. Hex was fumbling with this handfuls of credits and breathed out a breath of air, “You sure you don’t want her? You seem like a man with taste.”

“What’s on her arm?” The Mandalorian asked. _Don’t do this. Go._

Hex pulled the chain of the Togruta with more force than necessary, and she tripped on her own legs trying to place herself in front of them. “Well, ya know, it’s a shame, but some of these slaves were trained by terrorists who infiltrated the entire brothel and slavery syndicate system. Tried to turn them into _fighters,_ can you believe it?” Hex shook his head, chuckling.

“Don’t you worry though, this one wasn’t. But we still have a standard process of making sure they're properly dosed with just the right mixture of spice and deathsticks so they forget all of that and are nice and ready for their buyers.”

“You’re spicing them…” The Mandalorian stated, something red hot and giant clawed in his lungs.

“That’s a bit harsh. They love it. Look at them!” Hex gestured around the room in a grand sweeping motion, “Plus, when they’re dosed, they will do _anything,_ ” He laughed, and slapped the Mandalorian on the pauldron in a way that made it seem like they were being friendly with each other and shared some kind of privileged knowledge.

It wasn’t really an active decision; when the Mandalorian grabbed Hex by the throat. He only wanted to stop the hysterical laughter that roared out of the disgraced Rebel officer. That was all. Brown eyes looked at him with horror, and shot chaotically back in forth, searching for help. The Mandalorian let go, and, quicker than the man could catch his breath, slammed his skull into the table. Hex, boneless and knocked out, slid onto the ground.

Silence settled alongside luxury before the Mandalorian realized countless pairs of eyes were locked onto him, and twelve axes were raised in his direction.

—

The Guard had returned to his previous position of leaning against the wall just beside the door. Mara despised him. She was seething in rage having to wait by herself, outside of a Holding House, pointlessly wearing clothes that she had dreaded pulling out again. She paced back and forth, sweat beginning to bead across her forehead. Would the adhesive that kept the panel of the Opt-Blocker stuck to her temple withstand sweat? What was happening inside? It was so quiet. It was infuriatingly quiet.

Villagers looked at Mara with horrified eyes as they passed. It was odd. She’d noted their looks of concern as she and Mando walked toward the red door, but now, it seemed like the Guard was getting most of the dagger-filled stares. The concern of the town was fading into the background as long as there was silence behind the red door, though. Mara couldn’t keep her legs steady, each second that passed felt like a count down to a finale that she didn’t want to face. The Guard made note of it too. “You’d think a prostitute would be happy to be away from her owner for a bit,” He said snidely.

 _Prostitute. Owner._ The labels bubbled up just under her skin. Mara rolled her eyes, “Maybe your company is just _that_ unbearable. I’m counting down the seconds to get back to my _owner_.”

The Guard scoffed at the remark, “He’s testing out his next purchase, I’m sure. You should know _intimately_ how long this should take.”

A vision. A horrible vision appeared—no, exploded—for a split second behind Mara’s eyes. It left her feeling gutted. Before she could control herself and much to the Guard’s delight, she winced. He laughed at her, but as he did, a woman walking down the wooden path way spat at the ground near his feet.

“They really hate you,” Mara mumbled, leaning against the wooden railing.

“They can hate me all they want, I’m just doing my job,” he said it almost arrogantly, which didn’t seem fitting for his station.

Mara looked out at the ocean, wondering for a moment what it’d feel like to drop into its waters and have the waves carry her off into the horizon. The vast blue glittered and breathed in the distance as it has for eons while she stood next to a deadbeat Guard and was forced to wait patiently for the Mandalorian to return.

_He’s testing out his next purchase._

Mara shook off the sentiment. He went in for information. Every single action he did was duty-based, and Mara felt silly for even entertaining the Guard’s words.

 _He’s still just a man, though._

“Your job is guarding a market for enslaved Workers,” she growled, annoyance creeping its way up the back of her neck.

He shrugged at her, “This is how things are. I’m not the one enslaving and selling them, so, honestly, it’s not my problem.”

Mara recognized what a lost cause it was to attempt to convince a Holding House Guard that his job wasn’t humanitarian enough, but how could he not _care_? “It’s my problem, it’s a problem for every being who’s chained up in there,” she countered.

The Guard studied her extensively, “What kind of prostitute _are_ you?” He sneered, his eyes narrowed in on the Opt-Blocker that Mara had stuck onto her skin, and she felt the plate slowly dragging down her temple. It fell onto the wooden boards, bouncing across the ground until it slipped through a crack and plummeted to the sand below.

He quickly straightened and his face fell with realization just as the muted sounds of metal clashing together and blaster fire rang out from inside the hut. Villagers stopped in their tracks. Mara’s heart ceased it's beating. The Guard lunged at her, pressing her hard against the wooden railing. His arms wrapped tight around her torso, and clasped a hand over her mouth. She struggled against him as he dragged her toward the red door. Mara sunk her teeth into his palm until he screamed in pain and she tasted the metallic warmth of blood.

Blaster fire still erupted inside of the walls, nearly washing out the faint cries of women screaming. Mara broke free of the Guard’s embrace, but he stormed her again. This time, though, she dropped down low, letting her legs kick out from under her to meet his chest, and pushing as hard as she could. The instant his weight left her, she heard his screams as he stumbled over the wooden railings and fell to the sandy ground.

Villagers were all around her, she’d only just now realized how close they were, watching her with bright, large eyes and without saying a single word. She didn’t have time to focus on their presence though, metal was still slamming metal inside of the Holding House, and Mara jumped to her feet to pry open the red door. It was nicked and scarred from years of trauma that resulted in little damage. A man screamed inside. Did that sound like Din? Does Din even scream? “Lady! The door is impenetrable…” A harsh, gravely voice from the crowd behind her called out, “The control panel is the only thing that opens it, we’ve tried everything.”

Mara nodded, turning her attention to the glowing screen, and trying to bypass any protocols that would allow the door to slide open. She was _so close_ , she could smell the smoke as it drifted out of the dark void. She could hear blasters firing right now, and she wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

The control panel flashed red, notifying her that the technology had locked her out. Everything inside the walls of the Holding House fell silent. With a cry of frustration, Mara kicked her heel into the red steel. Not even caring how it reverberated into her knee. She reared back to do it again, but the red door sunk into itself revealing the dark abyss that lay behind it. Smoke poured into the street, and the villagers roared with chatter and flooded into the darkness, weaving effortlessly around Mara. Where is he?

Her legs pulled her with the crowd. Bodies of red guards covered in glowing holes were strewn across the ground, axes were stuck into overturned tables, villagers hopped over the debris and the broken glass to unchain the women who were huddled together and shivering from fear.

A hunched over, headless figure waved to her from the corner of the room. The phantom almost made her pause, almost made her jump out of her skin actually.

 _Look._

But she was too busy searching for the familiar glint of beskar. It was nowhere among the standing figures. With the Empty beginning to hollow out her entire body, Mara forced her eyes to scan the scattered bodies on the floor. Her breath was getting caught in her lungs—all bunched up in her chest like it had when a ship didn’t appear in Keyorin’s sky.

“We’ve been trying to get in here for years!” A familiar voice said, and Mara didn’t even register that it was talking to her until an older woman with dark hair that was pulled back into a tight braid and wrinkled skin that hung off of her pleasant face reached out her hands and grabbed Mara. Her dress, a patchwork combination of beautiful color, fell down to her feet, “You have no idea the scum that traveled here to take part in such _evil_.”

Mara nodded absently, her eyes still scouring the room, unable to focus on anything other than the knot loosening in her chest. He’s not on the ground. He’s still standing. He’s still alive. The older woman looked passed Mara, her dark eyes looking up at who she was now talking to, “And _you!_ We thought you were one of them, but—”

The woman’s words faded into nothing as Mara swung around and came face to face with a suit of armor. Everything in her lungs untangled all at once, as she released a breath of air that lifted the weight of an entire planet off of her shoulders. A smile stretched across her face and she didn’t even feel foolish for it. Mando was supporting the weight of a man who was half-awake. His black and silver hair was untamed and disheveled, blood smeared across his forehead. A couple of large men approached, “Is this Frederick Hex?” One of them asked in an accent that resembled the older woman’s.

As the Mandalorian handed Frederick over to the villagers, Mara turned her attention back to the room. Women in colorful patchwork dresses helped run-down Workers to their feet. She couldn’t help but walk over to a lavender Twi’lek with a mangled lekku, pulling a pin out of her hair, and wriggling it against the lock that encased the woman’s entire throat. A young woman with a hand full of orange-filled vials pulled an identical container off of the Twi’lek’s arm. “Mars? Are…y-you Mar-Mars?” The Worker stuttered, her voice coming out breathless and hoarse from underuse.

Mara’s heart stopped, and the pin nearly fell out of her hands just as the cuff released and dropped to the floor with a heavy clamber. Mara studied the Twi’lek closely, her lavender skin was drained of vibrance, and her blue eyes were fixed on Mara’s. “Do I know you?” Mara whispered, trying to place whether this was one of the workers from the Refuge or the Fortress.

The Twi’lek’s eyes shut and she tumbled back into herself, falling effortlessly into the thick haze that had been triggered by the orange vials. Mara was convincing herself she must have misheard when two women wrapped their arms around the Worker, escorting her out of the darkness.

Racking her mind for any time, place, memory that could have involved a lavender Twi’lek, Mara found Mando holding a cloaked man by his hood outside, letting go when a few of the village men approached to haul him down the pathway. She was finally done helping the colorfully dressed women dislodge vials and pick locks. He looked over the railing toward the sandy ground as she approached, “Looks like your work.”

She stared below at the burgundy, slightly mangled shape of the Guard starting to roll awake and groan in pain. She sighed. “I knew the drop wouldn’t kill him, but I’m still a little disappointed.”

The Mandalorian shook his helmet and they started their walk back to the Razor Crest. “So I guess you weren’t able to get the information you needed?” Mara asked, hardly able to keep the question inside any longer.

“No, I got it,” he stated. “We’re going to Hoth.”

“Then what was the shoot out all about?” Mara inquired, now understanding more fully that the Mandalorian seemed to react in defense than blindly attacking, and wondering what caused the first shot.

“That place couldn’t be left standing.”

Something bright and glowing bloomed in Mara’s stomach and traveled up to her chest. Warmth enveloped her bones. “You single-handedly brought down a Holding House just because you felt like it?” She tried to keep her voice even, but a wide smile had already exposed her.

“No,” Din turned on his heel to face her, but there was a long, drawn out moment where he didn’t say anything at all; like he had in the hull of the Razor Crest before they’d left for the Holding House, like he was thinking carefully through what he’d say next, “Not because I felt like it. It just…needed to be destroyed.”

Poets could string together phrases and metaphors to perfectly explain that overwhelming feeling of joy when a person does something that makes it seem like they just understand. When they’re willing to venture through the same risks, not because it impacts them, but simply because they know. They see. They’re willing to walk in step, side-by-side with their counterparts because of it. Mara couldn’t find those words, and she wouldn’t try.

“Alright, don’t give me that look.” He finally uttered, and turned to the ocean, “I’ll get the kid, we don’t want him flying off with the ship. And you need to go buy a jacket.”

“A jacket?” Mara asked while Din handed her a wallet of credits.

“Hoth is…cold. Make sure it’s a good one.”

Mara was happy to veer off on her own, and ponder the mystery of the lavender Twi'lek who had known her name.

After she had found, quite possibly, the warmest jacket in the village, she listened to the wood creak under each step she took toward the Razor Crest. Music was everywhere. The waves beat a heavy thrum against the rocks. The wooden passage ways hummed in satisfaction from the wind soaring through them. And the ocean was _singing._ Not like the wind in a tundra, but an actual chorus of classically trained musicians. A melancholic song drifted leisurely through the air, and stopped Mara in her tracks. And when she turned to watch the ocean serenade the planet, dancers sprouted out of its waters. They glided around each other. The beasts bounded to a glorious crescendo of their own making. No singer could compare.

Countless whales, as far out as the eye could reach, sang to one another, danced with one another, and leapt with one another; a celebratory jamboree that the world had the privilege to behold. Their fins and countless tendrils lining their backs, colored a Dantooine pink, caught the sun. Mara stood, awed. “That is one thing Savareen promises; no matter what, the whales will put on a great show.” A voice, carried by the wind, caught her off guard.

A woman, blessed with wrinkles formed from years of smiling in the coastal sun and a pile of gray hair swirled on top of her head, was caught up in the performance as well. She came to a rest beside Mara and they listened to the music in comfortable, wordless tranquility. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Mara said.

“Until I came here, neither had I. My wife and I fell in love with them.” The woman smoothed out her patchwork dress and leaned against the wooden railing. “I hope you don’t mind my noticing. I saw you at the Holding House. You’re marked with a scar she bore as well.”

Mara’s smile fell, and she ran her fingers over the hardened tissue on her temple. “Your wife was a Worker?” She asked.

The woman nodded. “A proper one after she escaped. By choice. She and I have tried to rid our village of that Holding House for years.”

“The villagers really took care of the women when we got inside. I didn’t know that existed; _so_ _much_ protection for our kind from outsiders, I mean.” She admitted, trying to hide the embarrassingly earnest smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“People can be good when they _understand_. That is my Alli’s doing. She’s got enough strength for all of us. It is a shame.” She shook her head. A whale hopped over another, swirling in the air with impossible grace.

Mara blinked at her, confused. She had only seen Hope in their community. There couldn’t be any shame in that strength. “I don’t think I understand.”

“No one should have to be made strong. Not when they should have been _safe_.” The woman let the notion hang in the air and sway to the music of the beasts.

A familiar harsh voice called out from the distance and Mara turned to see the woman from the Holding House waving in their direction. Her dark braids flowed freely in the wind. “Come back to me, you silly old woman! I don’t want to watch the show without you!” Alli called.

Mara’s company laughed and threw her hands up. “Thirty years, and you never learned patience!” She turned toward her wife and Mara couldn’t help but beam at the couple. Her cheek was clasped in a warm embrace. “I’m happy you got to see migration season. There is no better time to be here.”

She was only a few feet away when Mara began to wonder. “Where are they going?” She shouted back.

“Forward.” The woman smirked, her dark eyes glinting in the sun. “To find warmer waters. As I suspect you are.” And she reached out her hand and Alli grabbed ahold and pulled her into a kiss. Mara searched for a scar while the women laughed, but she only caught a glimpse of the faintest remnants where the hardened skin had healed over and become soft again.


End file.
